


After the Deluge

by GillO



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Jossverse
Genre: F/M, Gen, Post-Series
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-05-16
Updated: 2015-12-01
Packaged: 2018-03-30 20:25:40
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 27
Words: 32,384
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3950563
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GillO/pseuds/GillO
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Spike is battered in an alley, Buffy is in Rome. Trouble is afoot in more than one place, and they will be drawn inexorably closer together. Yes, it's potential apocalypse time again.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Storm Clouds

The rain finally drizzled to a halt around four, but the clouds hung low, compressing the sky and blocking the sun as it tried to rise. LA was a study in grey; deep grey blocks against intense grey skies, swirling in a chaotic pattern of dark on dark. 

Just as well. No bloody sun to cock up a situation already fucked up beyond repair. Granted, no risk of sizzling quietly but painfully into a heap of dust either, but that might get to be a plus one of these days. For now, moving was the real issue. Could he, and was it worth it? 

Worth a try. Possibly. Gotta give it a go at least.

He pulled one aching limb up towards his chest, gripping the knee with both hands. Then the other; he could feel the deep pain as bones grated against each other. There wasn’t much chance of standing from that posture, though, so he rolled over, hands on the ground. He pushed, his muscular arms unaccountably weak. No, it was too much – they wobbled and gave way. Jello arms now. 

He drew a deep breath, flexed, exhaled. Not really necessary, but it persuaded his brain that action was imminent. Another shove and he was at least kneeling. 

Spike wiped his face, roughly, rubbed his nose with the back of his hand and pulled back to focus on the copious smears of red left there. He licked the hand – what? It was blood wasn’t it? Couldn’t waste it. Why was it always the nose? 

Buffy, leaning against the wall, spoke. “You’re disgusting.” A familiar wrinkle distorted her nose.

For one blinding moment joy flared in his face, his eyes, his soul. Then common sense prevailed. “You aren’t her.”

She applauded, slowly. “No, I’m not. But don’t, please do not tell me you don’t like looking at me like this. Like her. “

“I don’t like looking at you like anyone. What the fuck are you doing here?”

“Oh please. As if your sparkling act could destroy me, you silly vampire. This isn’t a stupid kids’ novel you know. Your little girl did well, I grant you that. My army, what you didn’t wipe out, is underneath the most firmly-closed Hellmouth in America. My Bringers are a spent force for a good while to come. But I am pure evil. I am the Senior Partner. How could I ever really be destroyed?”

He glared at her. That harsh expression, the cynical twist of the lips – those weren’t his girl, not even at her lowest. 

“Do us a favour, love? Just piss off, OK?”

“The pretty sparkly vampire doesn’t want to be watched, eh? Never mind. The clouds won’t last much longer. And then, pouf! You’ll be ready for the Great Ashtray. Unless you crawl your way inside before then. Not going to happen, though, is it?”

“Bugger off. I mean it.”

“Or what? You’ll glare at me? What’s the point in moving anyway? Your cronies are gone. Your girl – she really is anyone’s girl now, you know – is partying away anywhere she wants. She hasn’t thought of you in a year. Just lie there, Spike. Dust is your friend now.”

He gazed hungrily at her. Not Buffy, no, but that face would never not be worth looking at from his point of view. She smiled, and her smile kept growing till it was as wide as the sky and she blinked into a horizontal line of light. Spike threw up a hand, instinctively, protecting himself from the brilliance. When he lowered it, she had gone.

“Interesting. Hadn’t factored that bastard into it again. I must be worth more than I’d thought. Stop chattering to yourself, Spike, and bloody move. Buffy needs me after all.”

So. Try again. Push. One knee up. Get one foot flat. Hands on knee. Push again. 

That’s it. Now stagger. Wall. Upright, move, step. Another step.   
Another step. A little run of staggering steps now. Corner of the street. Vampire here. Quick recovery. Something to be grateful for, perhaps.

He leant against the wall, every muscle screaming at him to stop. No sodding chance of that. Not now. Evil was bloody stupid, when you came to think of it. Now he knew he could make a difference, a sodding difference was going to be made. The First had shown him how little was left for him round here, but also that it was worth its while to have him gone. 

He reached out a hand to the corner of the wall and pulled, wrenching his shoulder as he drew himself forward. Again. Round the corner now, and a rear entrance to the hotel was at the other end of this alley. It looked a mile away. 

A mild breeze on his cheek made him look up. The clouds were definitely shifting, and that meant danger. Suddenly, that was worth thinking about again. His girl needed him, and he was bloody well going to her.


	2. Sunshine

Bright sun turned the river to a mass of shimmering sparks. A few fluffy clouds drifted across the sky and dancing leaves dappled the shade on the terrace where Buffy sat. The café music was soothing, vaguely jazz-like, and she stirred her latte idly, enjoying the chinking sound of the spoon against the glass. Andrew was talking. No change there, then.

“So, she’s with a group of other new Slayers in England, and Giles has them guarding her on a rota. No men around at all, in case the sight of them triggered her. I had to be Extremely Careful on the trip back to England, you know.”

Buffy sighed. She could hear the capital letters. Andrew wasn’t so very bad, when you got to know him. Not really. Honestly.

Buffy sighed again. Why had a walk by the river seemed like a good idea?

Andrew was off again, “So, I told Mr Giles I would be only too happy to stand guard there, but he said the Project would be better-served if I were here. So of course I realised he meant you needed my advice and I was online in a heartbeat and got the next train to Heathrow…”

She tuned him out, a skill which was essential to anyone in his vicinity for long. The annoying little geek just didn’t know when to stop. Granted, that castel thing had been cool, even if it was a reminder of a certain souled vampire – why Sant’Angelo, she wondered idly. Nice big tomb, with all mod cons inserted by later Popes. Andrew had dragged her there excitedly that morning, eager to see the reputed haunt of a master vampire in Rome. Not that she wanted any more of those, thank you very much. Once – no, twice, be honest, Buffy – burnt, twice shy. Or did it have to be thrice in that case? And what came after thrice – force? 

And, dragged in a full circle to Force, and thus geeks who memorised Star Wars, she wrenched her attention back. It really was that much of an effort, and working out what topic he’d bounced on to took more work every time.

“She really has come a long way, you know. All the way back from LA she had to be restrained. I tried to sit near her and cheer her up with a little light chit-chat about superheroines and how cool a movie about Wonder Woman could be, buy I had to move away after the third time she tried to break a bone. She nearly got me too – it took weeks for the scratch to heal. I have delicate skin you know, and my middle ear issues were making the flight tough enough in any case…”

LA. Buffy’s memories drifted back to those days after the collapse of her home town, when Angel had put them all in his old hotel, and she’d spent just long enough with him to realise that, in that direction at least, her cookies finally were cooked. He was still the dream of her youth, dark, gorgeous, sexy. But how had she ever put up with that brooding? How, indeed, had she ever thought it was a sign of a deep character? She’d left town with a certain amount of relief in the end.

Back to Andrew, no, please to the heavens surely close to the end of his tale.

“They’d wanted to keep her there, you know, in LA. They said they’d care for her and needed to look after her – some sort of atonement, I think, but I put my foot down. This is a Slayer, I said, do you think we're just gonna let you take her back to your evil stronghold? Anyway, they had plenty of their own trouble – you should have seen what she did to Spike…”

Buffy’s head jerked up. Suddenly, he had her full attention. Her very full attention. “Spike? What do you mean, Spike?”

Andrew stopped talking. For one blessed instant there was actual silence. He gulped, looked to his left, then to his right.

“Spike? Did I say Spike? Slip of the tongue. I meant to say “spite” – she was very spiteful, you know, cutting bits off people she’d captured.” He shuddered theatrically and glanced at Buffy uneasily.

“That is now what you said and not what you meant, was it?”

Another gulp. “You aren’t supposed to know. He’ll take me apart if he finds out. Er, Angel, that is. Finds out I reminded you of our Heroic Martyre Vampyre.”

Buffy stood. Suddenly she towered above him. She grasped him firmly by the collar and lifted. The chair came too, his whitened knuckles clamped to the arms. She shook him. The metal legs clattered against the table. His legs made a duller, more satisfying thus. He yelped.

“OK, OK, I’ll tell you! Don’t torture me any more!”

Disgusted, she dropped the handful. He landed heavily on his side, the chair landing even more heavily on his hand. There was an enjoyable scream.

“This is your last chance, Andrew. The next move I make you will be swimming. If you can swim – and, frankly, I don’t give a damn whether you can or not right now.”

Ten minutes later, Andrew was forgotten. There was another target for her fury. Another _familiar_ target. And Rupert Giles was not going to enjoy the meeting she was planning.


	3. Too Much Sun

It took four days for the bones to heal. Enough to walk on at any rate – he didn’t give a toss about anything else. True, might have been quicker without all the pacing, but what else was there to do? Bleeding wanker showed up, encouraged him to off himself, told him Buffy didn’t care – no change there, then – and vanished. He was supposed to do what? Take it as a kindly warning from the evilness of its heart?

Once the joints were no longer grinding against each other, he could think more clearly. Rome. Other side of the bloody planet, of course. This time there’d be no such thing as fancy transport through the sky with a minibar. Not even fancy cars. He winced a little at the thought of those beautiful motors. Far too good for the likes of Captain Broody, who hadn’t even thought to move them out of the parking garage before sending everything to hell in a handbasket.

Nope. This was time to call in a few favours. The Hyperion still had a telephone line, and it didn’t take too many calls to get a motor delivered to the door after dark. Helping the helpless paid off after all. Who’d have guessed? His contact had thrown in a full tank of gas and, very conveniently, a functioning cellphone too. 

This was no DeSoto, though. A battered truck, back covered with a tarp, front bumper dented and rusty. He rummaged in the hotel kitchen and found some heavy baking foil to stick on the windscreen and windows, daubed a bit of paint for extra safety and took off into the mountains. 

He did think of hunting for Angel and the rest of the crew, briefly. Nah. If any of them had survived, he’d know by now. He floored the pedal and moved out of town.

There was too much bloody country music on the airwaves once he’d crossed the Mojave Desert. Not enough punk. Who was he kidding? No bloody punk at all. He fiddled with the dial obsessively, looking for something to listen to that would not actually make him puke.

“I wouldn’t bother if I were you,” said Buffy.

“Bugger off. I know you’re not her. So what’s the point of riding shotgun with me? ”

“Oh, you’re so pretty when you pout. And even better when you hurt. I thought we might chat. You want to know what she’s doing now? Who she’s doing now? I could tell you. You know you want to know.”

He slammed his arm across, making a dent in the passenger seat back. She wasn’t there.

Sometimes he talked to himself. Literally. It wasn’t even funny. Sometimes Dru told him to give up. Twice it was Angel. Once it was Fred. That one made him screech to a halt and pummel hell out of the seat.

Once or twice he found rest stops and gas stations, asked around, booked ahead. Motels with covered parking were mercifully common in this bloody barbecue of a territory. He didn’t need much sleep, but rest helped him mend his shattered body. OK, OK, it hadn’t been that fully cured, alright? For food he had to stop a couple of times and hunt out a wild mammal. Arizona was short on all-night blood-butchers, it seemed. Short of every bloody thing - it took precious hours of night driving time to hunt out food.

He was grateful he’d managed to squirrel away some dough while working for the Evil Empire Inc. He called an international shipping company, made all the arrangements on the move. There were rules and regulations which could be circumvented with only a little ingenuity, and a sealed container was good enough protection from the sun. Thank God it wasn’t hurricane season, though.

Texas was no more interesting by night than Arizona, but at least he was getting closer. The apparitions apparated less often as he came closer to Louisiana. Perhaps it was giving up, or knew something about the traditions of the area. He made just the one call before New Orleans, but it was satisfactory and he came away usefully supplied. Next time the sod cropped up in his car it wouldn’t find it so comfortable. Bulk blood supplies were stashed behind his seat, not luxurious, but enough. He had nothing else to worry about.

Three days after leaving LA he pulled into the parking lot at the port. Bloody pain not travelling all day as well as all night, but the sun at noon was too fierce across those deserts even for him. He'd kept the down time to a minimum and floored the pedal all the time he drove.

At dusk he slipped across to an office, met a man. Money moved from one hand to another, then he returned to his truck, crawled under the tarp and finally let himself rest. Nothing he could do now would get him to her any faster, but he was on his way.


	4. Clammy and Warm.

All the way to Fiumicino Buffy trailed a wake of protesting flotsam. Dawn could see no reason why school should keep her in Rome and even less why Andrew should be trusted to act as her de facto guardian. She sat facing Buffy on the train explaining ad nauseam why she was needed in England.

“You’re crazy mad, Buffy. You need me to stop you killing Giles. At least till he’s told you everything. And then more so.”

That tack failed. Andrew – if Dawn was flotsam, he, surely, was jetsam? - sat next to her, gripping her by the wrist, as if that might stop her running after Buffy. He probably thought he had the kung-fu skills to stop her. 

Buffy kept her face still and stared mostly out of the window. The grimy suburbs of Rome drew past, looking much like the grimy suburbs of anywhere else, but with rude words scrawled on the walls in Italian as well as English. Crude expletives in garish colours tumbled over names, political slogans, declarations of undying love. As if that ever worked out. Love with the undying – not mixy at all. Whatever stupid vamps claimed.

She turned away from the depressing view and back to her sister, now in full-on whine mode. Andrew was welcome to that.

They were out in the country now, not so far from the airport. Andrew cleared his throat.

“I hope you don’t blame me, Buffy. I was under the strictest of orders to keep this to myself.”

“I suppose Giles threatened to take your light sabre away from you.” Dawn muttered.

“I heard that! And no, it was nothing to do with Mr Giles. I hope I would have known my duty to the Senior Slayer better than that. No, it was Spike Himself. He made me promise; a Debt of Honour to a Heroic Vampire, one who sacrificed everything for Love and for the world.” Every capital letter was distinctly audible.

Buffy snarled at him – soundlessly, but still undeniably a snarl. Quite why the heroic vampire had lacked the impulse to contact her himself was another issue, and would undoubtedly lead to violence. There seemed to be a lot of that in her near future. She sighed. Why was everything so complicated again?

Andrew opened his mouth, to defend himself further, presumably, when the train started to make grinding noises. They were arriving at the airport. At last.

Buffy moved swiftly through the departures hall, found her check-in desk and went through the formalities as fast as possible. Her entourage followed devotedly and argumentatively. Dawn was bringing out the big guns now.

“Buffy, you can’t make me stay here with this idiot! Mom would never have wanted it – and you know what Spike said about him. You’re supposed to be my guardian. “ She did not stamp her foot, but it was close.

Buffy turned, at bay. “Dawnie, I have to. You know I have to. If Spike’s alive, you know I have to see him. And if he’s dead and we could have done something to stop it – well, you see, don’t you?” 

Dawn grimaced. “I just don’t get it. He tried to hurt you, Buffy. Badly. Xander told me. But you looked after him last year. And dated Robin. And you’ve been dating Mr Sleazebag in Rome. I just don’t get it. Why do you have to go running across the planet for him now?”

Buffy grimaced. “Whatever Xander told you, he shouldn’t. And Spike got his soul. Things were different. And since Sunnydale I’ve been – well, I’ve been trying to forget. I think we both have, huh?”

Dawn gave an almost imperceptible nod. “I guess so. But I still don’t get why I can’t go with. School’s nearly over. In California it is over, just stupid Europe goes on longer. I could help, Buffy. I really could.”

Turning and gripping her sister’s shoulders, Buffy stared into her eyes. “Dawn, I need you to be here. To be safe, for one thing. To be here if anyone tries to contact me for another. Something bad’s gone down in LA. You’ve seen the news. Do you really believe what they’re saying about gangs and riots after an earth tremor? Do you really believe Angel and Spike just strolled away while all this was happening? And that the evil law firm just has a faulty switchboard? Stay here, for me. Please?”

Finally, Dawn gave in. It was not as if there was time to get a ticket by now anyway. “OK, I get it. You go. I’ll stay with Mighty Mouse here.” Andrew’s squeak was ignored by both young women. “But no killing Giles, you hear? Or Spike. Not until I get to join in at any rate.”

“Thank you, Dawn. I mean it.” Buffy bobbed up to kiss her sister, now so much taller than Buffy would ever be. “I’ll keep you updated once I get to England, OK? Andrew…”

He swallowed the noble speech he had been on the verge of making. “What Dawn said, Slayer. I’ll watch out for her as best as I can.” 

She smiled at the unexpected note of humility in his voice, then moved towards Security, the gate and England. Rather forlornly, Andrew and Dawn stood and watched her go.


	5. Wet and Windy

Spike woke to the sound of metal creaking, water sloshing and wind howling. Again. He groaned and tried to find a comfortable spot to lie down in again. Cargo travel had seemed such a good idea in LA, even in NO. Not so much now, trapped in the container, nothing to do, nothing and no-one to eat, not even a radio to listen to. Vampires might be good at lying still, but this was bloody ridiculous. 

Giving up, he pushed back the tarp and sat up. A few tiny pinpoints of light swayed across the steel wall in front of him; he followed the rays back to their source in a side wall – must be on the outside of the stack, then. Great. First to go under if the cargo broke loose. He really did not want to follow the pouf to a watery grave, whether temporary or not.

He stretched upwards, flexed his hands, then sprang to the top of the cab. Nope – still couldn’t quite touch the ceiling. Not quite.

Jumping towards the ceiling took up an hour. Fine. Only four hundred or so to go. Perhaps a stroll around his vehicle?

Twenty minutes of that was enough. Idly pushing the door back and forth lasted for five. He lay down under the tarp again. That git from Transylvania had it right. Sleep was the answer.

A few hours later he struggled back into consciousness, aware that the flatbed was shifting within the container, the whole ship rocking violently. No spots of light, so perhaps it was dark. Bugger it, though. The bloody boat was rocking. A lot.

He staggered around the truck two or three times. Some bleeding constitutional that was. Rusty metal grazed his hands as he lurched from one side to the next, bruises blossomed on his skin.

Giving up, he swung himself into the driver’s seat. At least there was a strap there; he could pretend to stay still.

“Hello, my Spike. You’ve come to join me at last. Is the nasty rough ship getting you upset?”

Spike didn’t bother to turn to look. “Piss off. You’re not Dru. She’s not here and she wouldn’t talk to me like that anyway. Not after Mister Slimeballs.”

Drusilla pouted. “That’s not fair. You don’t want to play, and Miss Edith wants a special party.”

“Shut up. That sack of hammers stuff was cute when I was still hers, but it cuts no ice with me now. Bugger off, will you. Let me be bored in peace.”

“You didn’t have to do this, you know. This long, slow, suicide trip.” His own voice, rational, persuasive. “It’s not as if she’ll thank you when she sees you. If she sees you. Not as if you did so well last time, is it. Blonde girl dancing across a crowded room, having fun. Without you. As it should be. You’ll never be good enough for her.”

“Oh shut the fuck up. Think I don’t know that? Think I haven’t got it factored in already? There’s no-one left in LA. You want me away from her. Can’t think of anything else to do, nor of a better reason to be near her. She needs me. I’m going. Now piss off.”

“And how are you going to make me?” The thing expanded, hideous claws raking towards him, howls filling the cab with noise.

Spike raised an eyebrow. “Trouble with you, you plonker, is that you’re stupid. I am the beasty that scares kiddies. Things of darkness run in fear from me. What makes you think your fancy dress games will work?

A calm, quiet man in clerical garb sat next to him. “Now, why don’t we just thrash it out here, man to man? Be reasonable. What kinda hold has that little girl got on you? She’s just dirty, you know. Dirty at heart like all of them.”

“She cut you into itty bitty little strips. I don’t need to listen to you. You must have a good reason for trying to talk me out of this trip. Don’t care what it is and it’s not as if you’d tell me truthfully. If you could sink this ship, you’d have done it by now. I’m a big boy – I can cope with a rough crossing if that’s the worst you’ve got for me. But I am going to Italy, and no way are you stopping me.”

Harmony giggled, peeked at him from under her eyelashes in a way she perhaps thought seductive. “Italy? Oh my poor Blondie Bear. You just go to Italy. Have some lovely ice cream. If that’s what you want? I’m doing better than I thought.”

Suddenly he was alone. He shook his head. Something didn’t compute there. That thing – Harm, whatever - had seemed pleased as well as amused. Strange. 

Ah well. Only three hundred and eighty hours left. Time for some intensive relaxing.


	6. Clear Skies Over Europe

Thanks to Council influence and airmiles, Buffy found herself smoothly and efficiently processed through Security, into a relatively comfortable lounge and onto the plane, with a Business Class upgrade that was very welcome after the somewhat grimy trip by train from Rome. She had no qualms about abandoning Dawn and Andrew. The worst that could happen would be her sister strangling the little idiot, so why worry? 

Meanwhile, there was plenty to think about in the couple of hours to Heathrow. She settled down in her window seat, waved away the offer of a glass of wine (it was half past ten in the morning for heaven’s sake!) and pulled out a copy of Vogue from her bag. The Italian was still tricky to read, but Prada and Gucci spoke a language she’d been fluent in for years.

She didn’t really notice the seat next to her being filled, nor the quiet assurance with which her neighbour declined the offer of coffee in a cultured English accent. There were boots of a beauty only Italy could design, and bags she might never be able to afford – and were too tiny to take even a moderate-sized stake – and some very luscious outfits for the businesswoman she intended never to become. She was barely even aware of the plane taking off.

Some twenty minutes or so into the flight, however, her companion cleared his throat. “Excuse me. If you look out of your window just now you should get an excellent view of Mont Blanc – that’s the highest mountain in Europe. Pardon me for interrupting, but I felt you might be interested.”

She was interested, though it felt odd to admit it. Mountains from above, especially those with glaciers, were generally beautiful, and the ice reminded her of days long gone. She gazed down avidly for a few moments, then turned to thank her neighbour.

“You don’t recognise me, do you? It has been a long time, I suppose.”

She stared at him. Recognise? The good-looking man, in early middle age she assumed, a faint trace of designer stubble across his jaw. He did look oddly familiar – someone from a long time ago, perhaps?

He smiled. “I have changed quite a lot since Sunnydale. I wore glasses then, and I wasn’t at all the man I am now. I was pretty useless, really.”

Buffy looked more closely, and her eyes widened. “Wesley? Can it really be you?”

“Ah, you do remember me then. I suppose I should start by apologising – I was such a jerk back then. Working with Angel – well, I’ve learned a lot.”

“Oh yes, you did work with Angel, didn’t you? I remember, a long, long time ago. Faith was there, wasn’t she?”

Her companion grimaced. “Yes. Not an episode to redound credit on either of us.”

“Hey, lotta water under all sorts of bridges since then! So, what are you doing here? You left Angel? How was he?”

“I’m in Europe on business for him. Making contacts, tracking down demons – you know the sort of thing. I’m on my way back now, but I thought I’d detour via home. I haven’t seen my mother since before you left school”

They chatted inconsequentially as they crossed France. Neither was interested in the airplane fare on offer, though Buffy accepted a glass of orange to sip. She found herself telling him about Rome, about her worries for Dawn, about Andrew. They laughed a lot as he, seeing the funny side, made her see it too. 

They’d left the Channel beneath them, and the flight attendant was moving quietly from passenger to passenger, warning of imminent descent, when he asked why she was on her way to England. “Not that it’s any of my business, you understand. Feel free to tell me I’m being impolite.”

She smiled warmly. This man was so unlike the Wesley she remembered from her senior year. That man, though boy might be a better term, had been gauche, authoritarian, inept. This man was warm, sophisticated, subtly amusing. Nice to know even men could grow up. “I’m on my way to see Giles. He’s living in the Cotswolds these days, and I need to ask him a few things.” She clenched her nails into the palms of her hands briefly, remembering what she had to ask him about.

“Giles? Oh dear heaven. Is he still about? If I might make a suggestion, though – if you wouldn’t think it impertinent of me?”

“No? What? Is there a problem with Giles?”

“There may be. I may be wrong, however. Just – be careful? Especially if he suggests you go with him to the Cotswolds. Be very careful whom you trust, even Giles. That’s all.” 

Moments later he excused himself to go to the bathroom and she returned to her magazine, at least superficially. She knew there’s been discord between the two Watchers, unsurprisingly really. But Wesley seemed so sincere. So approachable. And Giles had been so very arrogant in those last months in Sunnydale. He’d kept that most important secret from her, hadn’t he?

The captain’s voice came over the intercom, the seat belt lights flicked on. Surprisingly, Wesley had not returned to his seat. Perhaps he’d slipped into another on his way back, caught out by the instructions to belt up.

After the landing, Buffy collected her belongings and moved out. Still no Wesley – presumably he’d gone ahead. 

The line at Immigration for non-EU citizens was mercifully short. The officer inspected her visa, noted her indefinite leave to remain, politely welcomed her to Britain, and she was through. Baggage claim was even quicker, and within minutes she was at the barrier, waving to Giles.

After a quick hug, she started talking, filling him in on the latest news about Dawn and her astonishingly good grades, about Andrew and his sudden metamorphosis into man-about-town. “And you’ll never guess who I sat next to on the plane, Giles! Wesley Wyndham Price, of all people. He’s changed so much you’d hardly recognise him. Did you see him come out ahead of me? You guys ought to get together, talk over old times…”

Her bubbling talk petered out. Giles, holding her case, was gripping it so hard his knuckles were white. His face was closer to grey than she’d seen it in years.

“Buffy. I have some news about Wesley. I heard from the LA Slayer group just this morning. It’s not good news, I fear. There was a battle. Angel is safe, don’t worry. But Wesley… I’m afraid Wesley is dead. So who was it you spent your flight with, exactly? And why?”


	7. Warm Roman Night

Late night, late-spring Rome didn’t exactly have a lot in common with Sunnydale, apart, perhaps, from the temperature, but Dawn still had enough of her training left to be wary of responding to a doorbell which started ringing at eleven at night. Even – or especially – when it went on ringing.

Andrew, naturally, had no such qualms. He was the one with the active night life these days, regularly to be seen escorting glamorous locals of either, or indeterminate, gender. Dawn suspected some form of magical or demonic influence, but the former Arch-Villain (pat. pending) could be easily hurt and Dawn rarely had the heart to do that.

Andrew bounded to the door and Dawn could hear him dismantling the rather excessive collection of bolts, bars and chains, before flinging it open with what he undoubtedly considered to be panache. She smiled, almost tenderly. Pizza delivery at the wrong door again? No scream of terror at any rate.

There was a scream, though, delayed by perhaps thirty seconds. “Gandalf!” Why would Sir Ian McKellen call on her? Or was it a name he used for anyone with a beard?

Intrigued despite her own intentions, Dawn moved closer to the entrance, to a spot with a clear view of the late guest.

Her jaw dropped. It virtually hit the ground with a dull thud. She tottered slightly and grabbed for a chairback. She stared at the doorway, and stared again. Time moved slowly.

“Spike? Is it really? Surely it can’t be…”

A grey-faced, emaciated man leaned, impossibly, against the invisible barrier of the entrance. His skin pressed against his bones, squashed by the pressure which stopped any further movement. His expression was drawn, vacant, his eyes dull and lifeless. He was still unmistakeable.

“Spike, come in. You need to rest. Come and sit down!”

“Shouldn’t ha’ done that, pet. You don’t know what I am, not even if I’m really me. Don’t I look hungry enough to eat you up? Funny that – I don’t think I’ve been this skinny since the year Buffy … came back.”

Andrew stepped back, alarmed, and, failing in any attempt to be inconspicuous, shuffled toward the weapons cabinet on the wall. Dawn, however, reached forward and grasped his wrist, marvelling at how fragile it felt under her fingers, and drew him toward the sofa.

“You look like crap,” she pointed out in a matter-of-fact tone, “and what evil creature would impersonate you, looking like you couldn’t fight a feather to a draw, let alone two experienced Watchers?”

That produced something between a snigger and a choke. “Two _what?_ You have to be kidding me, right? I have met the both of you before.”

“Even so,” her voice was firm, and so was her grip, “I don’t think we need worry too much about asking you in. We have a few stakes lying around if need be. Not that I think it, whatever it is, will be. Needed. That sorta made sense, right?”

Spike interrupted her musings by pitching forward onto his face. It worked, though it was a little more dramatic than he’d planned. Andrew yelped and jumped back. Dawn squeaked and jumped forward, hanging onto his arm enough to stop him from entirely hitting the floor but failing to stop his nose from making contact. Always the way, that.

Dawn hauled him over to the couch and hoisted him onto it as Andrew watched, nervously. She gave the patent Dawn eyeroll Spike hadn’t known till then that he had missed so much.

“Andrew, if you can’t help carry him, can you at least help feed him? There’s a bag of plasma in the freezer – go get it.”

“Plasma, pet? I don’t drink unleaded usually. But why have you got even that?”

“Buffy insists,” replied Dawn, barely distracted from checking him for bruises and scars. “She reckons there’s always an outside chance a vamp or demon not out to kill us will turn up, and it’s as well to be prepared. Not that she ever thought it might be you, exactly.”

“Angel’s little nummy treat is it? Mighta known. Still, my need’s greater than Captain Forehead’s right now. If he’s still around he won’t begrudge me a sip of his standby plonk.”

“Not Angel, no. We have some friendly demons working with us here. That’s all.”

Spike was no longer listening. Andrew held the bag out to him, mutely. It was barely lukewarm, but Spike clutched it between both hands, sliced an edge off with a fang and gulped. For a minute or two there was no sound other than his convulsive swallowing as his companions, frozen where they stood, watched him consume the bag’s contents.

Eventually – a very brief eventually, in fact - there was none left. He took in a great gulp of air and swiped the back of his hand across his mouth.

“Thanks, love. Needed that, I don’t mind telling you.” He handed the bag to Andrew who stood, as still as before, staring at it, clearly with no idea what to do with it.

More mild irritation from Dawn. This was obviously a pattern. “Unless you plan to slash an artery to give him a refill, there’s a trash can in the kitchen.”

Andrew scurried off to deal with the debris. Dawn risked leaving Spike propped back against the pillows for a moment, and went to a shelf in the corner of the room. “We don’t have any whisky, I’m afraid. Not our tipple. But there’s some grappa Giles left here on his last visit, or a walnut liqueur. You are going to have a big glass of one or the other, buster. And then you have one hell of a lot of explaining to do.”

Spike groaned. He hadn’t exactly forgotten the elemental force of a Summers woman on a mission, but the full effect in 3D after so long was more than a little alarming. He began to speak, “Bu…”

“Buffy’s in England, trying to find out the truth about you. If she’s not in California by now. So what I need to know is, why are you here, do we tell Buffy, and what are we supposed to do with you?”


	8. Chilly May

The sun sets later in England than in Italy in late May, and the long, golden shadows made even the road out of Heathrow look almost fairylike. Well, shiny in places. Well, OK, prettier than it usually was. 

Giles managed to keep Buffy chatting for quite a few miles. First was the question of who, or what, had really talked to her on the flight. Then there was catching up to do – Dawn’s amazing progress in Italian school, her facility with languages, her ability to terrify Andrew when needed. There was Xander’s activity in Africa, his brief return to what Giles, rather oddly, called “Blighty”, and Willow’s new girlfriend.

Buffy sat still, staring ahead in that rather odd, rigid way he’d noticed in non-Brits sitting in the left seat of a right-hand drive car. He commented on the spring foliage, the magnolias in blossom, the bluebell woods. He mentioned that he’d had extra bathrooms installed in his own house, especially for visiting Slayers. Eventually, inevitably, he ran out of conversational gambits. She continued to sit in silence.

He sighed and took the next exit from the motorway, taking a side road through the lush Berkshire countryside and stopping in the car park of a half-timbered country pub. He removed his spectacles wearily and started to polish them.

“Buffy, I know what you want to say to me. Before you start – and don’t worry, I’ll hear you out – I just want you to know that we were under strict instructions, from Spike and Angel themselves, not to tell you anything about what they have been doing in LA this past year. They were both very specific about it.”

“Great. My exes conspire with you to keep me in the dark. Just what I needed to hear. I understand why Angel might not want me to know, but Spike?” Her lower lip trembled for a moment, then tightened. “So not the point right now, though. Giles, stuff was happening in LA and I was not in the loop. Can you explain that to me?”

Her voice had hardened and Giles swallowed. He had this coming to him, he knew. Strange that he had practised the explanation so many times, yet words failed to come to him now when he needed them. He brought his glasses closer to his eyes and inspected them for grease.

“Put those down, please. I’ve known for many years what you do that for. You are not an old man, you are not vulnerable, I have no need to pity you. And if you do need more time to think up an excuse, I have no intention of giving it to you. Answers. Now.”

Another swallow. Giles pinched the bridge of his nose between a thumb and forefinger, then restored the frame to its usual place . “Let’s go inside – it gets cold in the evenings at this time of year, even when it’s been sunny.”

It was a blatant final attempt at delay. Buffy knew it, but nodded briefly. He followed her through the battered ancient door and to a table. Bloody gastropub – an excessively eager young woman with an Antipodean accent came at once to proffer a menu and take a drinks order. Time was, a man could gallantly go up to the bar, get his thoughts in order. The country was going downhill.

Buffy coughed meaningfully and fixed him with the Slayer Stare. 

He started with a stumbling account of Andrew’s trip to LA to recover Dana. That went smoothly enough, though she want very white at one point and gripped her spoon so firmly it bent in two. When he got to the visit to Rome of the vampire champions, however, she could restrain herself no longer.

“He told them _what?_ ”

“He thought he was telling the truth. You had been seeing a lot of The Immortal, after all.”

“On _your_ instructions. So I could get the info _you_ wanted. As he well knew. What possessed him to tell them anything else?”

“I – he – thought it would be better to let them know you’d moved on, that they were not needed in Rome.”

Her head snapped up and the power of her glare could surely have melted stone. His hand went reflexively to his spectacles.

“You mean “you”, don’t you?” Her voice was dangerously quiet. He didn’t quite understand why the rest of the pub had not fallen silent. 

The waitress, bless her, appeared with their drinks. Thankfully, he buried his nose in the single malt he’d allowed himself, despite being the driver. Rich, peaty aromas invaded his senses. Buffy glanced at her pink concoction and extracted a small umbrella, which she began to shred rhythmically.

“Giles. Over a year ago you conspired to have Spike destroyed for my own good. If you had succeeded, the Hellmouth would never have been closed. The apocalypse would actually have come. Don’t you think you really have done enough harm interfering in my relationship with him?”

He swallowed. Again. “I know I was in the wrong then, Buffy. You made it very clear to me at the time. This is different – Angel’s been working for Wolfram and Hart all year and Spike has been with him. It was clear he was working with Angel, and we just don’t know what that means.”

She placed the torn umbrella down with exquisite care. She did not hit Giles. She did not scream. She did not break anything. She breathed in, deeply.

“Buffy! How amazing! And Mr Giles too!” A female voice, enthusiastic and familiar, broke the standoff. Buffy raised her head sharply and blinked, several times. 

“Cordelia! Whatever are you doing here? I thought you were in LA?” Thought she was in LA in a coma, as it happened, but let’s not be too specific.

“Oh, it got boring. I blew the joint a while back. So, you and Giles in England, huh? Whats all that about?”

Buffy thought furiously. Wesley, on the plane. Now Cordy. Though it could really be her. She’d heard some weird stories once or twice. “Yes, Giles and I get together on occasion. We’re spread rather thinly these days, since Sunnydale went down the sink.”

“I heard about that. Way to go, girl – that’s an impressive dent to make. So, what you bin doing lately? And what are you planning to do while you’re here? We should so hang out together.”

Yes, because they were so much bosom pals. Something stank here. “Just on our way to Giles’ home in Bath. Willow’s not far from there, with some friends.”

“Ah yes. Miss Sears 1997. How is she now?” Cordy tittered. This wasn’t even a good version of Cordy – it was the shallow sophomore, not the grown woman she’d been for years. Buffy and Giles arrived at a sad realisation at almost the same time.

Buffy stood, and so did Giles. As if they had planned it, they reached out simultaneously, their hands meeting halfway through Cordelia’s body. She looked at them wryly.

“Uh-oh. Seems my cover’s blown. That sucks. Still, I’ve given you something else to think about. Unless you just want to keep bitching at each other?”

She seemed to split, her grin growing wider, her body distorting horribly until, in a blink of light, she was gone.

Buffy and Giles looked at each other through the space she had occupied. She – it – had been right. There were more important things to discuss than past quarrels.


	9. There May be Some Turbulence

  
Allowing Dawn and Andrew to plan his daytime journey through Rome to the airport was Spike’s first big mistake. Letting them go with him was his second.  
  
Together, they just managed to amass enough euros to acquire, via various “sources”, the passport he needed to cross Europe, still so many separate countries crammed into a small space. He rather fancied the Orient Express, followed by Eurostar, as an efficient and comfortable route to the Olde Countree. Dawn didn’t.  
  
“Look, I don’t mind using the credit card. Buffy left it with me for emergencies, and I think she’d accept you count as one. But I dare not max it out, not if we don’t want to have it declined at an ATM in England.”  
  
There was brief, vigorous discussion. In the end the point was accepted. Train was long and slow, involved crossing several frontiers, at not all of which the police were slack about inspecting documents, and carried a much greater risk of accidental sunlight. Not so good.  
  
However, when he’d agreed that train wouldn’t work, he had not realised that meant air. Not just an airliner without W&H fancy glass, but, of all damned things, a _cheap, budget airline_!  
  
Then Dawn explained to him the complications of travel. Sunset is late in May, even as far south as Rome, and night flights aren’t as common as anyone living under a flight path might believe. The latest flight they could find required a last check-in before it was quite dark, and that involved travel there during daylight.  
  
Taxis with no windows are rare in Rome. The drivers prefer their victims to see the early deaths they are hurtling towards. Not that Andrew or Dawn were at all influenced by their terror of Roman cabs. Not at all. It was just, in many inexplicable ways, more convenient to use public transport.  
  
Somehow, Spike’s trusty blanket and vampire running speed got him to the Spanish Steps Metro station. Dawn and Andrew followed at their own more leisurely pace, sauntering down the steps, admiring the Keats house, the fountain, the tea shop and the tourists before joining him in the shade.  
  
“Ah, la bella Roma!” Andrew announced sentimentally. “Mi dispiace salire e vediamo arriverderti!”  
  
“You are sorry to climb and we see you goodbye thee?” Dawn repeated, incredulous.  
  
“My little bella donna, you lack the soul. I bid farewall to the Eternal City and you fuss about trivia of the vocabulary. I dismiss you, pah!”  
  
Dawn’s eyeroll was quite a precise match for Spike’s.  
  
They descended to the station, climbed on the train, and in half an hour were at the outlying station to the south of the city. The next stage involved more blanket-work and scurrying, a rush to board an already-crowded bus and standing up wedged between travellers redolent of garlic, anti-perspirant and hastily-stubbed cigarettes; the latter scent came rather obviously from Spike. The route involved several villages and suburbs; at each stop there was shoving and elbows, and muttered _Scusi_ and occasional curses, mercifully in demotic - and violent - British rather than anything more internationally comprehensible.  
  
By the time they arrived all three of them were hot, sticky and bad-tempered. The shadows were longer now, and Spike was able almost to stroll into the terminal building.  
  
Security eventually accepted the Zippo could count as his “ **Safety matches (one small packet) or a cigarette lighter** that does not contain unabsorbed liquid fuel, other than liquefied gas, intended for use by an individual when carried on the person.” Once he’d practised a touch of thrall on the man and Dan had looked mournfully at him. Once through there they encountered far more dangerous territory, the duty free, neither free of duty nor free, where Dawn’s eyes opened wide and she salivated with retail lust. Spike objected, vocally. Andrew whined. But Dawn dealt with both of them crisply. Her hand baggage had less than a litre in total of “ **Non-radioactive medicinal or toilet articles** ”, and only the most heartless fiend alive or undead could seriously expect a girl to manage on that.  
  
She conceded that, yes, there might well be shops in England which sold such essentials as shampoo and conditioner, both necessary in industrial quantities to maintain the shiny hair, but she had no guarantee that a place like Luton, of which she had never heretofore heard, could possibly reach her exacting standards.  
  
In the end, as she had known they must, the two males gave in. Spike paused only to purchase a bottle of whisky with most of what was left of their euros (Stands to reason we’re not gonna need them in Ye Olde) and set about demolishing it. Andrew watched, somewhat repelled and at the same time offended not to be offered any. They slumped on one of the long rows of bare, grey metal seats, most without even a token concession to upholstery, and stared in different directions.  
  
Dawn joined them with several small, expensive-looking bags, which she proceeded to pack away, and eyed the half-empty bottle with disfavour. “Andrew, why did you let him do that? Buy that stuff, I mean?”  
  
Stung, Andrew tried to defend himself, “How was I to stop him? He’s way stronger than me, and I could hardly start a fight and in any case I have a hangnail.”  
  
She dismissed him in disgust and entered into an interminable and fruitless attempt to persuade Spike to dispose of the rest. “Not bleeding likely! Paid good money for this. Your money, granted, but still…”  
  
The calling to the boarding gate stopped that debate, eventually, while the grim wait in line in grey-walled corridor space as the airline officials (what colour were they wearing?) interrogated every passenger, one by one, tested the dimensions of baggage and refused to admit to any knowledge of actual flight times was enough to subdue even a determined vampire.  
  
The flight was, of course, delayed. Just as well, really, as they had to jounce and bounce across the asphalt in an under-maintained bus to reach their plane, then climb a set of steps in full view of the sky. When this had become clear, Spike’s scarred eyebrow lifted and he sent a very pointed look in Dawn’s direction.  
  
“It’s not my fault! They have plenty of normal gates at Ciampino. How was I to know we’d have to board like this? Anyway, it’s dark now, so what’s all the fuss about?”  
  
The frantic rush for the steps as soon as the bus doors opened stopped any response for the moment, and by the time there was an opportunity to reply Spike had become fixated by the full horror of the garish uniforms of the flight attendants and the cramped nature of the cabin.  
  
“I knew it wouldn’t be like the Poof’s private jet, but my god, this is the Doublemeat Palace of airlines!”  
  
He maintained an unflattering commentary through the safety demonstration, the take-off – though he gripped his seat-belt rather firmly – and the announcement of the refreshment trolley. This changed his tune, but only a little, “Look at this poxy little bottle! Do you know how much they charged me for it? Bloody outrageous I call it. Some pillock is making money hand over fist out of us and he deserves a bloody good draining, soul or no soul.”  
  
Eventually, Dawn closed her eyes. To the sound of vampire complaints on one side and whimpering nerves on the other, she drifted off to an uneasy sleep.

 

 


	10. Cool and Unsettled

  
  
Somewhere between paying the waitress and arriving at his Westbury home, Giles began to feel Buffy might forgive him. In due course. Possibly even this century.  
  
Cordelia’s appearance and vanishing act had helped, indubitably. The implications were manifold and disturbing – ever more so as they considered the ramifications. Discussion occupied them all the way through Berkshire and well into Wiltshire.  
  
First, she must be dead. True, that was not inevitably fully fatal in Buffy’s world; who knew that better than the Slayer who had died twice and spent much of her evening hours despatching those who had already died once? This was Cordelia, though, not a vampire, and it seemed unfortunately probable that she would have been aligned with the majority: one life, one death.  
  
How and why she had died concerned them, briefly. Yes, she had been in a coma in LA, but one supervised by the best medicine an evil law firm could buy. Wouldn’t they have heard if she had taken a turn for the worse?  
  
Giles shifted uncomfortably in his driving seat. It was, he admitted, possible that the revived Council had not been on entirely friendly terms with Angel’s team since they had moved into their plush new offices and evil old company. It had seemed more than probable that the team was being manipulated by the erstwhile owners of the company, and the general consensus had been to respond to overtures in a cool and polite but unwelcoming way.  
  
Buffy filed this mentally. In her experience if Giles admitted this much, unprompted, there would be much more he was not admitting. There was still plenty he had to tell her about Spike.  
  
Now, however, was not the time to start an argument, either on this weird freeway with its bizarre signage and terminology or, later, on the terrifyingly narrow roads to the village outside Bath where Giles lived. It was bad enough talking about the manifestation which had taken – stolen – Cordelia’s form, and considering what it wanted from her. Or, possibly, wanted to stop her doing.  
  
Buffy had never visited the “country home” of her Watcher, though she had listened avidly to Willow’s descriptions of her stay there. Giles, it seemed, came from a world in which two homes was the norm, but showers, air-conditioning and even bug screens were a given in neither. She was prepared for discomfort,   
  
She was not prepared for the menagerie which greeted her. Country houses, it seemed, required animals underfoot – two huge dogs, “All noise and no trousers”, Giles explained in the sort of explanation that was not. There was an elegant cat, Selina, which retreated to a high shelf and glowered at her, and another, Mog, “Just a moggy” which pounced on her when she sat and proceeded to tread up and down her legs, snagging her new pants irreparably. Outside, she was given to understand, was the outdoor livestock which she could meet in the morning.  
  
Sunnydale, and even Rome, seemed light years away. Giles showed her a bedroom, decorated charmingly in shades of blue, with pastel figures in old-time clothes cavorting all over the white ground of the wallpaper. There was a cast-iron fireplace filled with pine-cones and a paper fan, and the strangest windows she’d seen in a long while. Between her and the lift-up part, a bit like the Neanderthal version of her own at home in Sunnydale, was a buckled sheet of plastic in a frame, like a screen but not. The whole set-up rattled if you so much looked at it and Giles warned her that “the sash is a bit tricky till you get the hang of it.” Why she would need a belt to deal with a window he did not explain. There was no apparent source of heat or cool air, and the extra quilt draped on a chair showed how she was presumably expected to regulate the temperature.   
  
Buffy shook her head. Giles was so very British at times.   
  
She found a bathroom which was just that – an enormous roll-top bath stood balanced on clawed feet which gripped baubles of some sort. No evidence of any sort of shower. She freshened up quickly and ran downstairs.  
  
Giles was sitting, polishing his spectacles. Somehow, that sight, so familiar over all the years, drove away her annoyance and exasperation. Not far – they would be back soon, she knew – but a wave of sheer affection for her friend and mentor engulfed her and she smiled.  
  
“Ah, Buffy. Everything in order, I hope? I should have asked if you needed a shower. The plumbing in the original part of the house wasn’t up to it, I’m afraid, so we had one installed in the annexe.” So there was some possibility of civilisation as she knew it, then. Buffy relaxed a touch more.  
  
In the shadows in the corner of the room something moved. Buffy whirled round ready to leap into fighting stance. Giles smiled.  
  
“Ah – I don’t think Selina will need quite that brand of Slayer attention. We are fairly safe in here, I think. However,” and he gestured to another, also-dark, corner, “I don’t think you ever did meet Miss Hartness, did you? I hope you don’t mind my asking her along, but I do rather feel our encounter at the pub shows I may have been wise.”  
  
Buffy looked at the older woman and, slightly to her surprise, encountered an expression of wry fellow-feeling. Dear Giles. Why use ten words if sixty-three will do?  
  
There was an inevitable fuss as a “proper pot of tea” was prepared, then the three sat down together on the rather shabby sofas. Giles opened the proceedings.  
  
“We need to pool information. Buffy, I know this was not part of your plan in coming to England, but we have been hearing disturbing things over the last few days. I do believe I might have been telephoning you about now to entreat your presence here.”  
  
“Giles, you know why I came. I need to resolve that before falling in with the apocalypse du jour, don’t you think?”  
  
Miss Hartness leant forward. Her face was thin and her expression looked a little drawn. There was a bush of steel-grey hair, inadequately held in place by pins, but the eyes which stared at Buffy were exceptionally clear and there was no mistaking the seriousness of her expression. “Buffy, I think what has worried us may be linked to your concerns. It may well be no accident that you are here now. I believe the gentleman whose name we have been so carefully not mentioning may be in some danger. It is also my belief that you were summoned here. Buffy, I think he, and we, will be in the greatest possible need of your services, and before very long.”


	11. A Cold Front Approaching

  
  
Dawn had heard of the difficulty of herding cats. By the time they had been in England two hours she would cheerfully exchanged her job for fifty tabbies on a long march.  
  
Andrew really didn’t need to become so talky. The Exiled Hero, returning once more to his Native Land, but Oh, So Changed! was completely unimpressed. After a mere ten minutes of it, so was Dawn. The least he could have done, instead of orating, was find a car for them, but no such luck. Andrew was moved, and that meant everyone must share in his deeply-felt emotion.  
  
Meanwhile, Spike strolled around the foyer making sarcastic remarks about the beauty of Hertfordshire. He had a lot of pent-up emotion of his own to exorcise, true, but he was actually British. He could have helped.  
  
Instead, when she caught up with him, he was staring in horror at a map of the local region. “It’s practically bloody London now! What happened to the brick fields? What have they sodding well done to this county? Look at all those bloody blue lines there – giant roads. I like cars as much as the next bloke, but this is bloody ridiculous!”  
  
Dawn drifted away from his rant. Andrew had now become positively Messianic. “Little do they know, the little people here, going about their little lives, that here, within mere feet of them, is the hero who gave his life for the world, returned to save them once more. Unknown to them he poses as an ordinary man…”  
  
“With that hair?” interrupted Dawn. It didn’t work.  
  
Andrew glared at her but went on, “an ordinary man, albeit one with super-cool style choices, yet when they think themselves safe in their bed he prowls the night, dealing with their worst nightmares, so they will never have to face them, once again risking his unlife for the sake of humanity…”  
  
Dawn went back to Spike. Better a grumpy vamp than an inspired nerd. When he paused and shoved his hand irritably in his pocket, she recognised his need for a smoke and steered him outside.  
  
“And that’s another bloody thing. California I understand banning smoking. They’re so politically correct there righteousness comes out of their arses. But **_Britain_**? Since when has a man been banned from smoking his own fags in a public place? Sodding fascist, I call it!”  
  
Dawn carefully avoided telling him that the same rules applied in Italy and most of the rest of Europe for that matter and linked arms with him as soon as the ritual of lighting up was done.  
  
“Spike? Where do you want to go from here? We’ve money for a hotel for a night if you want…”  
  
He was contrite at once. “I’m sorry, pet. Shoulda remembered you’d be tired.”   
  
She yawned, on cue. Not at all on purpose. Honest.  
  
“Let’s get us away from this bloody place at least. Where did you say Buffy was going? Close by, is it?”  
  
“Not too far. Just this side of Bath, she said.”  
  
He stared at her, “ ** _Bath_**? that’s bloody miles away. Half a day by train in my young day. Has to be two, three hours even now. And I’m betting we don’t have the money to hire a decent fast car.”  
  
Dawn had to admit that they were not exactly drowning in cash, no. “We can get a car and go to Giles’s place, we could get a hotel here or we can go somewhere else. Your call.”  
  
“I’m not staying in bloody Luton, that’s for nothing. I really do not fancy driving to Bath at this time of night, though. What say we go off westward and find us a country pub. One with **_three_** vacant rooms.”  
  
Dawn stifled a smile. It hardly bore thinking about Spike rooming with Andrew. It was funny in the abstract, though. “OK. With a couple of provisos.”  
  
Spike seemed a little more relaxed now nicotine was coating his airways, such as they were, again. His smile was more familiar, sardonic but affectionate. “Provisos, pet? Platelet all growed up and calling the shots now?”  
  
“Only in practical terms. It has to take a while to rent a car, and it’s late. So we go use that Internet Point over there and book us into a motel, not a cosy pub where they’ve all gone to bed by the time we get there. Any idea where it should be?”  
  
“Good thoughts, both. Well, I don’t really know the motorways round here; it’s been a while since I was back in Blighty, y’know. How ‘bout we head to Aylesbury for the night and onward via Oxford? You’ll like the Cotswolds in the daylight, and I can slump in the back seat under a rug while Trek-boy navigates for you. Better still, gag him and get a car with GPS.”  
  
Dawn was looking at a map on the wall. “I guess. Looks like those freeways would be quicker. We could go somewhere like Hemel Hempsted?”  
  
“No, love. Stayed there a century ago with Dru. Once a dump… Aylesbury it is. And on to the Cotswolds.”  
  
Thus it was that Dawn woke up the next morning in a cheap, cold room, in a hotel where purple seemed the dominant colour, with mould on the bathroom tiles and some very embarrassing noises seeping through from the room next door. Breakfast, apparently, was to be in the pub next door, the noise from which had stopped her sleeping awhile the night before. Yes, she was in England. Just as she’d dreamed of it.

 


	12. Cotswold Sun

  
By the time breakfast was over, Dawn was certain this had all been a really bad idea.  
  
The airport had only been the start of it. First, when they found the car rental booth, was the issue of who had a drivers’ licence good enough to rent on. It turned out Dawn wasn’t old enough. “Well, we might do it, but there’d be a surcharge and a three thousand pound excess,” explained the clerk sweetly. Once that had been translated into actual English Dawn recognised that her driving skills, good enough for **_Rome in the rush hour!_** were not acceptable to British insurers.  
  
It didn’t take many minutes to rule Andrew out of the equation. Yes, he could, in theory, drive. He grew up in California – only weirdoes and Slayers weren’t driving by senior year at the latest. But drive stick, on the wrong side of the road, changing gear with his left hand and rhapsodising about British TV? Not in a million years.  
  
So Spike stepped up. Smirking, he flourished his (fake) British passport and his (also fake) British licence, a piece of pink paper in a cracked plastic cover and no photo of any sort anywhere on the document.  
  
It was so not fair.  
  
They’d gone straight to a warehouse to get stuff to plaster on the windows. Spike’s hands were smoking in a few places even in the one-mile journey to get there. She and Andrew had to do the shopping. Funny how she found herself adopting Spike’s way of describing him. Though she felt she would get even less polite very soon. A ten-minute shopping trip turned into nearly half an hour, and they emerged with stuff Andrew thought was cool as well as the mylar foil. She did not want a USB light to plug into a laptop, a mousemat with bubbles in it or a spinning sunflower for the garden they did not have and never were going to have.  
  
Deep down, she just knew Spike was doing this to punish her. As if she hadn’t spent way too much time with the Dungeonmaster from Hell in the last year. He’d be smirking all the way to the Giles house, she just knew it.  
  
Spike was gloating less than might have been expected. It was decades since he’d driven much in Ye Olde, and the roads lacked many of the advantages of his favourite routes in America. They were too full, for starters. And way too full of cocky sods who hooted when you so much paused at a roundabout. Stick shift wasn’t a problem, but Geekitude yammering away in the rear about the emotion he must feel on re-entering his native land bloody well was.  
  
Then there was the issue of daytime driving. England didn’t have Californian levels of sunshine, but in May daylight hours were bloody long, and despite the paint, mylar and dinky little sunshades chosen, inevitably, by Andrew, from the kids' section it was barely sufficient to block out the full daylight. He liked pyrotechnics of his choice, not providing them in person.  
  
He wasn’t going to admit other things that made him uncomfortable in his native country. The language had changed. Again. He’d spent the best part of a decade in California, and was used to cellulars, cars with a GPS system. Yeah, OK, even hoods and trunks. It was one thing to switch back to bonnets and boots, words reminding him of his long-ago youth. Another to talk about mobiles and satnavs. And roundabouts with bleeding traffic lights on them. Or that sodding nightmare in Hemel Hempsted. One unlife was not long enough to go back there ever again.  
  
Andrew could hardly contain his excitement at the prospect of escorting Spike to the Lovers’ Reunion. He had a detailed and beautiful scenario in his mind’s eye already. He would lead the Restored Hero by the hand, cool palm to palm, until the moment when the Slayer would look up. Blue eyes and hazel would meet across the room in one expression of rapture. Each would turn, fulsome in thanks. _If it hadn’t been for you, Andrew_ …  
  
Dawn was trying to work out the map and give directions. She had assumed, logically enough, that there would be road signs, route markers. No such luck. And Spike was no help at all. Anyone would think he didn’t want to see Buffy from the garbled instructions he gave her. Bath was just off the freeway, or whatever they called it. Aylesbury wasn’t, but in this tiny country nowhere was particularly far from anywhere else. Her sensible suggestion of heading south towards Maidenhead was derided as only males know how to do when a woman is in charge of the route map. Oxford via Bicester was the preference. And how in hell was she supposed to recognise the town on the atlas from _that_ pronunciation?  
  
Then the road south of Oxford wasn’t good enough for him. He said something about seeing Witney and dying, and who could be mad enough to elect that ponce? And then he kept taking turns without telling her.  
  
It was so very much not her fault when they ground to a halt, somewhere in the middle of Oxfordshire, on a single-track road with grass growing in the middle, nowhere to turn and only a farmyard ahead of them.  
  
Andrew loved the pastoral beauty of the countryside. There was frothy white stuff all over the hedges, cows in the dinky little fields, rolling hills of a startling green, and the cutest little stone houses everywhere you looked. The Hero was returning to his roots, to places that could barely have changed since he was born. Apart from the electricity lines and metalled roadways, naturally.  
  
Spike stared blankly ahead of him. This was the place. Angel had left his motor at the farm before they walked off into the fields together. The heart of the Cotswolds was pretty in a nancy-boy sort of way, but underneath it was the bedrock. Easy to work when fresh, but hard, darkening and tough with age. Hiding secrets.  
  
They sat there in silence. Spike’s gloom deepened. This was an English summer, for Chrissake. You didn’t expect bright sun. Or a barnyard with a gate too narrow to get the bloody hire car through.  
  
Nowhere to go from here, certainly no-one to contact. Just a hole in the world to set to rights. And two passengers who were going to demand answers any minute now.

 


	13. All Roads Lead From Rome

  
  
Buffy struggled awake, yet again. This time zombies had been chasing her. They all had faces she’d recognised – Larry from school, Cordy, Angel’s friend Doyle, her Mom’s neighbour, who actually had been a zombie, Jenny Calender. They called her name as she dived from the cover of a tree to a bush to a gravestone to a bright red, British post box. An organ was playing upbeat music and the creatures that followed her danced to the same rhythm.  
  
Boy, was she glad to be out of that one. It hadn’t quite had the feel of a full-blown Slayer dream, but she felt it wise to tell Giles over breakfast. She didn’t mention the other times she’d woken – the rattling windows, the strange barking sounds in the night, the sheer chill of her room. The dream was enough to explain her grey face and tired eyes, she was sure.  
  
Giles listened attentively and asked some succinct questions. One name made him pause and clean his spectacles vigorously, as she’d known it would.  
  
“I don’t think we need be too concerned about this dream. All of these people you knew were dead. You are now in England. I think that explains the pillar box. I think it may be no more than your brain processing our meeting with Cordelia, that’s all. However, that itself is part of what we must attend to this morning. Would you like another cup of tea before we get to work? No? Then follow me, please.”  
  
It all seemed suddenly formal. Buffy followed Giles along the hall, careful not to trip over the fraying carpet. There was a strange contrast between the large, glamorous building and the shabby furnishings. She’d have asked Giles about it, but it might have offended him.  
  
This was the guy who had hidden Spike from her. Why did she care about offense?  
  
This was the man who had guided and protected her since she was sixteen. Offense mattered. Or “offence”, as he would probably correct her. If he could hear the spelling in her voice. Which he couldn’t. Though this was Giles - he probably could.  
  
At the end of the hallway there was a smart, new-looking door, glossy white with a neat brass handle. Giles opened it and waited for her to pass through. _A Slayer could never be asked to cope with the effort of opening her own door now, could she?_  
  
The other side of the door was a different world – sleek, cool design, computers ( _Giles?_ ), about half a dozen people moving calmly about their business. This was no family home. Buffy turned to Giles questioningly.  
  
“Yes, it is a little different, isn’t it? This is the business end of the house – what is left of the personnel and records of the Council, funded by the quite substantial funds left in the Swiss bank to which I fortunately had access. The house belongs to my family trust, but this side of the door is Watchers’ domain. Would you care to follow me?”  
  
He led her across the open-plan room to a pair of open double doors and beyond. A highly-polished table dominated what appeared to be a conference room. Already seated were Miss Hartness, one younger woman and two youngish men. Giles motioned Buffy to a chair.  
  
“I’d like to thank you all for coming here so promptly,” he started as he seated himself at the head of the table, ”and for taking seriously what must initially have seemed rather an alarmist message.”  
  
“Giles, what message? I need filling in, here.” Buffy was exasperated – she was here because of her own concerns, which might still extend to ripping her former mentor to shreds. And suddenly things were all apocalypsy again. Out of season too. England in June was just wrong for it, in so many ways.  
  
Giles removed his spectacles. That was a good omen. He coughed. Worse.  
  
“Buffy, I’m sorry. Let me start by introducing the others to you. Miss Hartness you met last night, and this is Althanea, who has been a particular friend of Willow’s. On your right is George Robson and this is my brother, Oscar. Yes, our parents were original with their choice of names. And this, as you know, ladies and gentlemen, is Miss Buffy Summers, the original Vampire Slayer of her generation and, I hope, the key to some of our problems.  
  
No pressure there, then. “Key? I think you have the wrong Summers girl mister. Just what problems are we talking about here?”  
  
“Buffy, over the last year, Althanea’s coven has noticed some problems. The currents linking the powers of the world have gone, well, awry.”  
  
“The Force is no longer with us? Since when was it ever? You have to do better than that, Giles.”  
  
Oscar Giles leaned forward. “Miss Summers, I understand that flippancy is, shall we say, your modus operandi. This is a little more serious, however, and it would well behove you to concentrate.”  
  
Buffy’s eyes rolled. This family handed out the stuffed shirts with the diapers. “Relax, Giles Junior. I can be serious enough when there’s a need for it. So, what’s the need?”  
  
Oscar’s face was more than a little red. Althanea interposed. “A lot has happened in the last year. Your stroke of genius last year defeated your enemies of the moment, but it also left the continuum with many more Slayers than had been the rule. That took … adjustment. Added to that was the dual vampire problem.”  
  
“Dual? More fighting?”  
  
“No, Miss Summers. Dual souls. The upheavals of your last year in Sunnydale masked a more, shall we say, structural problem.”  
  
“Structural?” Buffy turned to Giles, “’Splainy?”  
  
“Buffy, you do understand that vampires do not have souls. Ever?”  
  
“Well, it’s not the commonest thing, I know, but…”  
  
“But nothing. They don’t have souls. So when one does acquire a soul, through a curse, things are affected.”  
  
“How so? It happened in the last century-but-one, Giles. News to no-one.”  
  
Miss Hartness coughed, “Not news, no. But as long as he was under a curse and crushed by misery, it seems the Powers That Be were content to let it pass. When he lost his soul, the status quo was restored.”  
  
“But the status didn’t stay quo, did it? So, things got extra-complexy when Willow put it back?”  
  
Robson spoke up. “Not then, no. But you may not realise just how variable Angelus’ soul has been in recent years. It seems as if the anchor point has been weakened.”  
  
“Anchor point? More ‘splainy?”  
  
“We don’t really understand it all ourselves. It seems that the fabric of reality is accustomed to strain. But only up to a certain level.”  
  
“A level we’ve reached, I take it?”  
  
Giles spoke. “Robson, I’ll take over if you don’t mind. I think we need to go through all the events since the turn of the millennium – all those which seem to be relevant, that is.”  
  
He unrolled a large sheet of paper. _A flow chart_? “This is our attempt to put some sort of order into the sequence of events. The trouble is, the more we look at it, the more we seem to need to add.” Buffy looked more carefully and realised that scraps of paper were taped on at the sides, and there was a lot of liquid paper covering earlier attempts. The thing looked like a giant spider’s web, linked in vivid colours. As Giles talked she gave increasing attention to deciphering the language.  
  
“As you can see, we’ve traced events back to January of the year two thousand. The date, it seems, is more important than we thought at the time.”  
  
“Wasn’t there a bug that was going to wipe us out? Didn’t happen?”  
  
Fleeting pain crossed Giles’s expression, “Not quite. There was, indeed, some sort of electronic issue. You know how I have always felt about the dread computers. It turns out, though, that the paranormal world took the strain while the technologists were expecting some sort of computer disaster. Frankly, one of those would have had far less impact.”  
  
“So what’s the big deal? Why the panic? It’s not as if we haven’t dealt with big mojo before.”  
  
Giles traced the lines on his paper. “Here we have the year 2000, as you can see. While computer technicians,” said almost as a curse,” worried about numbers and dates, it seems the universe was trying to rebalance at the end of a mystic cycle. It found it difficult to do so.”  
  
Buffy glared at him. “Giles. Mr Exposition Man. Will you please cut to the chase. What happened then and why is it such a big deal now? I’ve lost count of the apocalypses we’ve dodged since then. Business as usual, no big.”  
  
Robson and Oscar turned almost identical glares on Giles, who rubbed the bridge of his nose wearily. “Yes, big. Buffy, there is a problem. Every year since the turn of the century the fabric of reality has been tampered with. Do you recall who joined us in the year 2000?”  
  
“Who? No-one. Unless you count Glory, and we saw her off didn’t we? Oh.” Her hand flew to her mouth. “Dawn.”  
  
“Yes, as you say, Dawn. Then your untimely and happily temporary demise. Then a second souled vampire. Last year seems to have been, as you might say, a wowser. I gather there were some spectacular events in LA, followed by the sharing of your power. And this year Angel appears to have opened hellgates we didn’t even know existed and released more than one major disruption. Add to that dead vampires being reborn, reappearing, giving birth, reversing entropy…”  
  
Buffy decided not to challenge “entropy” – the sense was plain, even if not all the details were. And _giving birth_ was way too complicated even to think about. Cut to the chase. “So, what do we do about it? Are we the Seventh Cavalry? And if so, where do we get sent in?”

 


	14. Cotswold Roads

  
  
Two hours later Giles managed to get his troops moving. It had not been easy. Completely unaware of necessity that the identical concept had struck Dawn not so long ago, he recalled a proverb about herding cats. That was childsplay compared to managing a Slayer, two witches and sundry Watchers only too ready to take offence. He would really have preferred to have left most of them behind; in the end Robson grudgingly agreed someone was needed to hold the fort and volunteered to remain and try to contact Willow, last known of in Thailand and Dawn, in Rome but unusually for her not umbilically attached to her phone – Buffy had been unable to talk to her since just after her own arrival in England.  
  
That left two witches, both a little too concerned with the niceties of their auras but otherwise prepared to rough it. And Oscar.   
  
Oscar Giles, younger brother by five years, Watcher wannabee, had leapt at the opportunity offered by the explosion of Council HQ and taken over what remained of the British operation. Robson had been too frail to object initially, and they had then both been exceptionally busy tracking down Potentials and maintaining comms links for Rupert. He’d been grateful, really he had.  
  
After the death of Sunnydale, though, once the new Slayers had gone their various ways and he had escorted the Summers girls to Italy, he had been tired. More tired than in the whole of his life. So it had been less than easy to arrive home to find his brother installed, major building works in train and his house full of busy people whose affairs were all so much more urgent than his own.  
  
Oscar explained, of course. After all, the house belonged to a family trust, not technically to Rupert. And Oscar was family, wasn’t he? It made all sorts of sense to have everything centralised, close to motorway and rail networks. There was so much space, too – had anyone really cared about the old stables and wash-house, to be honest?  
  
Faced with his brother’s logic, Rupert Giles, Senior Watcher with an actual Slayer of his own, simply crumbled. Of course their mother wouldn’t have wanted him to throw Oscar out. Of course decisions had had to be made in his absence. Of course the money from the Council had also covered other repairs, so they were net gainers really.  
  
And if he mourned for his own quiet country home, he did so in silence.  
  
Oscar hid his awe at the actual presence of Buffy quite well, but it was encouraging to see him defer to her on matters which he was so confident he knew best on when arguing with his older brother. Whether vampires could ever genuinely act altruistically, for one. Whether all demons were evil for another. As far as he was concerned, Rupert could only offer anecdotal evidence, intrinsically untrustworthy.   
  
Yet here was Buffy, cheerfully telling him about Clem and the green demon who seemed to have associated with Angel in recent years, and Oscar was accepting every word as gospel. Perhaps all it took was a pretty girl with superpowers to convince him of the error of his ways. Pity there weren’t more of those in Wiltshire.  
  
The new Range Rover was comfortable and fast, and swallowed the passengers with ease. Giles found it refreshing to do nothing but drive the familiar route to the motorway and ignore the chatter beside and behind him. Now at least he had a simple purpose and a single focus. Complications could wait until later.  
  
In the back seat Oscar was doing his best to impress the two witches with his knowledge, general and particular, of the Council and of Slayers. The actual Slayer in the car joined in for a while, but when the talk moved on from the demons and vampires she knew to historical accounts of others in the distant past, she shrugged and inserted earbuds. To all intents and purposes he was alone.  
  
Giles had no need of the SatNav in his own territory, and Oscar was deep in showing off mode, so it wasn’t until well after they had left the motorway that anyone paid attention to their route. Beyond Wantage he slowed, looking for the clues that would tell him where to go next. Somewhere this side of Witney, he thought.  
  
“Stanford in the Vale? Stanford’s in California, surely? Near Sunnyvale – I knew that because of the name.” Trust Buffy to get to the heart of things.  
  
“One Stanford is there, certainly. This one is somewhat earlier. Once upon a time I imagine that bridge was built over a ford paved with stone.”  
  
“Totally not an explanation,” muttered Buffy, “so you’re telling me this is all historyful?”  
  
Giles winced. “You could say that, yes. This area is full of history from before there was history. Which is why we are here. The Vale of White Horse has powerful mystic currents. It is a liminal territory, has been from time immemorial; there are ancient powers at work here.”  
  
“Why is it always ancient power? Why not something spanking new for once?”  
  
“Because, quite simply, that is not the way things work.” He turned right, up Joyce’s Road. He noticed. Buffy didn’t. They drove out of the village, up out of the Vale, hills visible in each direction with strange, lumpy mounds on them. One had a strange, modernistic caricature of a horse carved into its side. Buffy didn’t ask.  
  
Buffy was quiet as they pulled up out of the valley; she was entranced by the view through the windows of the lush roadsides. The end of May in the Cotswolds is a good time to visit: there were huge fronds of cow-parsley, wild flowers in yellow, green and blue, occasional floods of bluebells undulating beneath trees in bud and young leaf. The houses were increasingly built in a creamy golden stone, giving an odd uniformity even to what were clearly modern housing projects. It was hard to think of a greater contrast to what felt like home.  
  
To Giles it was routine, as it was to the other passengers, by now deep in discussion of the possible applications of Pleiadian spirit conjuring. He swung the car along narrower and narrower lanes which twisted and knotted until no sense of direction could have worked.  
  
Buffy gripped his arm as he changed down. Not the ideal time to do so, but her alarm was quite literally tangible in the pain he felt. He braked and turned to her.  
  
“Giles, this can’t possibly be the way to anywhere. There’s grass **_growing in the middle of the road_**!”  
  
The back-seat debate stilled for a moment. A silent message passed between the passengers. “SoCal girl.” Before Giles even started to emphasise that he was fully aware of that, thank you, it was perfectly normal round here, and he knew exactly where he was going, they had returned to conjuring and invocations.  
  
Barely convinced, Buffy, never a comfortable driver, but sitting in what every memory told her must be the driver’s seat, stared in horrified fascination as the dry-stone walls surmounted by hedges frothing with blossom seemed to close in. A demon was preferable any time to travelling along English country lanes.  
  
Giles braked. Ahead of them the road stopped. A farm gate lay skewed across their path. Through it could be seen a badly-scraped and dented small car, doors left wide open. Beyond it a barn.  
  
Wherever they were, it seemed they’d arrived


	15. A Meeting.

  
  
Dawn had grown up listening to Spike abuse the language, but even she was shocked at the torrent of incomprehensible profanity he produced after Andrew asked him, “What now?”  
  
OK, it was the fourth time he’d asked it in ten minutes, and Spike had been patient (for Spike) the other three times, but even so. And she had to admit she would have liked the same question answered herself.  
  
Eventually the tirade ground to a halt. Spike gritted his teeth and explained that he had not expected a narrow gate, because last time he’d been here it had been in the dark and he thought in any case the Great Pouf had found another entrance. So he had no sodding idea what now, thank you very much and would welcome any suggestions that did not come from a drivelling nerd with the IQ of an Ewok. **_Half_** an Ewok.  
  
“Ewoks are actually highly intelligent,” Andrew started, ignoring Dawn’s glare and head-shake. Fortunately, Spike paid little attention.  
  
“Right. I am going to ram that gate. The posts are dodgy by the looks of ‘em, and there’s room between the stone pillars if the wood gives way. You two can either get out and wait or hold still, but no bloody whining whichever you choose.”  
  
There was no point whatsoever in referring to the cost of car rental replacement, and that they’d accepted an “excess”, whatever that was, of five thousand pounds, which was a lot more dollars. That would most certainly count as whining to Spike, the mood he was in. “Right. I’m getting out. I can get you lined up better that way and make sure the gates aren’t chained shut.” And, to herself, pick up the pieces if you set the car on fire or mangle yourself.  
  
Andrew scurried to join her, and they dragged the dilapidated gates ajar, as far as they could manage. The bottom part of each was rotten, while the upper bars were covered in a green slime she’d rather not ask too much about. The gate-posts were both, as Spike had noted, rotten at the base. Possibly not quite so insane an idea after all, then. Just stupid. There was no telling some vampires, though, and she wasn’t about to start at this point.  
  
Spike slammed the car into reverse, retreating as far as he could in a straight line . He focussed on a dark, weatherbeaten door in the wall of the barn, just about shaded by an overhang of corrugated iron. _Now or never._  
  
He put the car into first, foot on the clutch, other foot ready to floor the gas pedal. An observer might have spotted an unholy joy in his eyes. Soul or not, living or unliving, this was what it was all about – adrenaline, adventure, fire. One foot up gently, the other rammed down. And again.  
  
The noise was appalling. Dawn, well to one side, watched incredulously as the car accelerated again and again. She winced and crinkled her eyes shut, crouching behind the stone wall and gripping it fiercely.  
  
A grinding, crunching metallic sound reverberated, almost drowning the cracking and disintegration of timbers. Then there was another sound, screeching brakes. Dawn covered her face with her hands, then peeked between two fingers. No explosion, then.  
  
“Come on! Get a bloody move on, will you?” So, he was no more dead than usual, then.  
  
Dawn and Andrew scurried across to the scraped and scarred vehicle, one to each side. Andrew wrenched open the driver’s door and was momentarily taken aback by the absence of a steering wheel. “Don’t stand there gobsmacked, you bloody idiot,” snarled Spike, from the other side,“- grab the bags and get them through that door. Yes, that one there, right in front of you.”  
  
Dawn got to her door more slowly, and started tugging on the handle. No luck – the metalwork was buckled as well as scratched. Spike made a face, “Stand back, kitten,” he yelled as he twisted his body across both front seats. A stray curse for the very uncomfortably-positioned gear stick, then he pulled his knees to his chest and bucked, his feet hitting the door forcefully.  
  
Dawn jumped back just in time, then paused. Now the door was open, full sun shone directly onto it. This could get messy.  
  
Spike swore once more. Probably just as well she didn’t understand half of the British language. He reached behind the driving seat and grabbed his trusty blanket, which he hurled at Dawn.  
  
Quick to grasp what was needed, and not exactly inexperienced in the daytime protection needs of vampires, Dawn caught the flying rug and spread it open, slightly higher than her head. In the temporary shade, Spike could act, propelling himself from his seat and under the improvised parasol. Within moments he was under the puny shade of the barn roof and pushing the door open.  
  
Inside it was blessedly dim. Spike beat at a few stray wisps of smoke and issued orders which had both of his – well, why not? – his _minions_ scurrying to empty the battered little car and pile their belongings just behind the door. While they were fully-occupied he sauntered across to the open end of the barn, thankfully not in sunshine at this time of day, and groped for his fags and lighter.  
  
“Well, aren’t we the superhero, then?” A deep voice with the faintest trace of an Irish lilt came from the dark corner.  
  
“What the? No. You are not him.”  
  
“Oh, but I am.”  
  
“Yeah. And I’m the Queen of sodding Sheba.”  
  
“You still don’t get it, do you, William? I am all that is and has been evil. I am all that has died in sin and despair. I am you, I am her, I am most definitely me.”  
  
Spike lunged at the figure, which neatly vanished and reappeared behind him. “What, you thought I’d given up? Forgotten all about you and gone home after a little taunting and feeble bickering? Did you really believe I was defeated? Shame on you, boy. I had thought better, even of you.”  
  
“So this is all part of your master plan? Ever read the Evil Overlords’ Guide? You do nothing but brag and strut, whoever you look like. It’s not as if you can do anything physically without an actual physique.”  
  
The figure wavered, settled, became Drusilla, “Ah, but my Spike, that’s where you are so, so wrong, my poor boy. I’ve brought you here. Here, very particularly, my boy. There’s power here, going way, way back. And when your little friends all arrive? That power will be mine.”


	16. In the Open

  
  
Giles left his own car skewed across the shattered entrance to the farmyard, at an angle from which he could head away from the place, but also blocking any other vehicle from entering.  
  
He climbed out of his Range Rover and tentatively approached the little car. “A hire car, I see. From Luton, apparently.”  
  
Oscar found this attention to detail irritating if it wasn’t his own idea. “What does that tell you, then, Rupert? Someone from Bedfordshire came to Oxfordshire? Not exactly earth-shattering news.”  
  
Giles glared at his brother through lenses which had actually acquired some specs of dust. Remedying this, he removed them carefully for cleaning as, in tones of great patience, he explained. “Luton has an airport. That might mean someone has flown in.”  
  
“OK, Giles,” interrupted Buffy, “so flight is still a wonder to you Olde Worlders. I get that. But why is that so important? Why are we here and why are you studying that heap of junk so carefully?”  
  
“Miss Hartness chimed in, “Buffy, it’s a remarkably new piece of junk. Those are deep scratches, cut right into the metal, and it’s very shiny underneath. No sign of rust or even a patina of dust. That means it’s very recent.”  
  
Althanea pointed to the numberplate. “It means nothing to you, I’m sure, Buffy, but that number there – 04 – means the car is less than three months old. It’s not cheap. And I doubt if it’s driveable again now. Somebody wanted very desperately to get through these gates. So desperately she or he was perfectly ready to wreck several thousands of pounds worth of car and risk her life in the process.”  
  
“Her?” Buffy’s voice was sharp.  
  
“Or his. I just tend to think female first. It’s a hazard of my calling.”  
  
Buffy was clearly thinking furiously. Giles moved to intercept her before she added two and two to make five. Or, knowing Buffy, six. “Whoever it was, Buffy, it could be very dangerous. I think it’s time to step back and let Miss Hartness and Althanea operate.”  
  
They moved back slowly, taking Oscar with them, until both the remains of the gateway and the unmortared stone wall lay between them and the witches.  
  
Althanea followed them to their car and retrieved a canvas bag, which she took back into the farmyard. From it she took four wax candles, each at least eighteen inches tall and as thick as Buffy’s wrist. _Willow would just love this_.   
  
Miss Hartness took a small bag of white powder, a plastic bag of what looked like wheat and another of sand. As Althanea placed the candles carefully, constantly checking their position with reference to the sun, the older witch began to move anti-clockwise in a circle, trailing first the white, then the dark grains behind her. On the second circuit she closed the circle just as Althanea stepped inside it.   
  
The bag gave up more contents – some incense sticks, a rough hank of unspun, dirty, sheep’s wool, a small loaf of bread. These were arranged in a careful pattern. Buffy couldn’t see exactly what that pattern was, but the concentration in the faces of the two women and the precision with which they moved each element until they were entirely satisfied made it clear how important it was.  
  
Finished at last, Miss Hartness looked round her circle one more time. “Ready?” she asked.  
  
“As I’ll ever be,” grimaced Althanea. “You know these invocations work best under a full moon.”  
  
“We do not have time to wait a week. We do not have time to wait till moonrise. Can’t you sense the power in this place? We need to propitiate if we can, neutralise if we can’t. We need to summon the boy, whatever else.”  
  
Oscar turned to his brother. “Are you sure this is wise? Have we really researched this place sufficiently? You haven’t put any sort of wards in place.”  
  
Rupert Giles spoke softly, through gritted teeth. “Just how many apocalypses have you handled lately, brother dear? In the last decade, say? Into double figures yet?”  
  
Oscar bridled. “Is this really a time to pull rank? You are older than I am. Is that my fault? You were appointed as a field Watcher. Could I help that? I held the fort here while you were jaunting off to California, you know. Don’t I deserve a little consideration?”  
  
“Is this the time to have a testosterone contest?” Buffy was way more than annoyed. “Giles, I am sure you can have this discussion with your little brother some other time. I think the ladies would really welcome our non-interruption right now.”  
  
The brothers subsided. Pissed-off Slayer was nobody’s favourite companion. Oscar blushed slightly and muttered an apology under his breath. His brother explained, briefly, “They are summoning a local spirit. We hope he will be helpful, in which case we won’t need wards. If he isn’t, wards wouldn’t make a blind bit of difference.”  
  
Buffy rolled her eyes. Men were boys well into middle age, clearly. A cough from within the wall restored her attention to the activity of their companions. Althanea had finished her walk, had scattered handfuls of grain and salt across the ground within the circle and now stood, poised and ready. As soon as their audience was fully silent, both ladies nodded and took up their positions.  
  
The women sat, cross-legged, facing each other, and began a low hum. Fumes from the incense sticks started to circle them, intensifying into a reddish cloud; it swirled, thickened and darkened describing a tight sphere within the boundary marked out, until the witches at its core could scarcely be seen. From the mist the hum intensified, wavered and became words in some ancient language. “Friða ricea, cume! Mánswica rice cume!”*  
  
Buffy gulped and glanced at Giles. His face held utter concentration as he mouthed the same words soundlessly. Oscar, on his other side, had paled and gripped the craggy outcrop of the wall for support. This was serious stuff, whatever it meant.  
  
“Cume! We þe ábenaþ! Nu biþ ándagan ágieldan scylde!”**  
  
The two voices started to intone, alternating lines. The fog deepened further, becoming the colour of old blood. Wisps spiralled, drawing in air and space, focus pulled inward from all sides. The hum continued, even though the voices chanted the words; it changed pitch, wavering up and down through the scales. Further voices joined, though the ancient words rode over all other sounds. As if from a long way away there came a stamping sound, a metallic clashing, then a soul-curdling wail.  
  
Sudden silence. From the darkness and fumes a slight, male figure stepped forward. He was quite short and had a jaunty swagger. He paused once he was clear of the fug from which he had emerged and stared disconcertingly directly, with the bluest of eyes, at Buffy. From his forehead he irritably brushed a few strands of hair. It was bright blond, glinting in the summer light.   
  
Buffy caught her breath.  
  
  
  
  
  
  


 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *"Come, protector of the people! Come, traitor to the people!"
> 
> **"Come! We command ye! Now is the time to pay your debt!”
> 
> All words in the invocation are in Anglo-Saxon. I _think_ I got the declensions and conjugations right.


	17. Almost Into the Spinney

  
  
Dawn and Andrew finished bringing the bags into the barn without any help from Spike who stood, oddly silent, staring out across the fields and clumps of trees. Dawn built a neat pile not far from the door, hindered by Andrew who insisted on sorting through his laptop bag. There were probably toy figures inside it. She stood glaring at him, arms crossed, every bit the bitty Buffy of yore.  
  
Once the car was empty Dawn stood, waiting for a cue from Spike. Then she sighed, not so quietly and advanced on him.  
  
“Hey, Mr Broodypants! Mind telling us why we are here?” Dawn called, more cheerily than she actually felt.  
  
Spike whirled on her with a snarl. “Do. Not. Call. Me. Broody.”  
  
Dawn grinned. “What else is it? You’ve been staring out into those fields for an hour now. I grant you English fields are quite pretty, with all that green, but what’s so wonderful about this view now?”  
  
“Memories, pet. Been here before, haven’t I? Not so pretty then.”  
  
Dawn drew her breath in sharply and turned up the megawattage of her glare. “Spike, I think it’s about time you and I had a talk. You never did intend to drive straight to Buffy today, did you?”  
  
Spike looked round, his face more than a little haunted. “Send the geek-freak away somewhere and we can talk. He is not in on it, though, OK?”  
  
Dawn hissed her reply. “Exactly how am I supposed to do that? We’re stuck with him in the middle of a barn in the middle of a field in the middle of a _foreign country_! What do you suggest I do - send him down to the store for a carton of milk?”  
  
Was that a ghost of a grin? “Can do better than that. Just watch.”  
  
He strolled over to Andrew, who was checking his DVDs and action figures for damage. Only when Spike leaned over him and plucked a small, shiny robot from his fingers was he even aware he had company. He jerked back in alarm, landing in an ungainly heap on a straw bale. “Hey! Be careful of R2!”  
  
“Arse too?” Spike sneered. Andrew gulped. They had been here before, long ago.  
  
“Put down the model, Spike. Please be careful – he’s a special paint job, virtually unrepeatable.”  
  
“You think I care about these toys?” Spike tossed the figurine from hand to hand. “I may have joined the side of the white hats, but there’s plenty of the Dark Side left in me. You want to see how much?”  
  
Blood drained from Andrew’s face. Coherent speech was beyond him, but he managed to communicate the concept that yes, he was eager not to see how much, that he knew Spike was a reasonable man, really he was, and that perhaps there was something Andrew could do to prove his loyalty?  
  
“There was a pig farm we passed half a mile back. Advertised home-made sausages – does it seem to you they might have blood they could give you, for a price? “  
  
Andrew was positively falling over himself to agree, even when he realised that driving the car back out of the gate was not an option. His precious doll was solemnly restored to his arms and put away, then he scurried off.  
  
“Now that was cruel.” Dawn had barely managed to keep a straight face until Andrew was out of sight. “I thought you were all soul-having now?”  
  
“So was Attila the Hun, pet. A soul shows you what is right and wrong. Doesn’t decide which you choose, or do the choosing for you. “  
  
Dawn looked at him warily, “So you chose, just then?”  
  
“Nah. Just couldn’t resist winding the little git up. Gives him a healthy respect for vampires too, and that’s no bad thing for his chances of a long life. It worked, didn’t it?”  
  
“Oh yes. He positively _cradled_ his little model. He was this close to tears.” She demonstrated, pinching her fingers. “As will you be, buster, if you don’t spill. Now. What are we doing here in the middle of nowhere?”  
  
He sighed. “You win, pet. Let’s draw up a bale and sit here, where we can see that coppice and I’ll tell you.”  
  
Together they dragged a large bale to the open doorspace. They sat and stared across the field, glowing in the late spring sunshine, at the clump of woodland at the far side.  
  
Spike started to explain. “See that copse, there? We were here a couple of months ago. Angel and me, that is.”  
  
Dawn looked at him sharply. He had avoided much mention of the other souled vampire, beyond a muttered explanation of his assumption of his fate. This sudden opening up was odd, to say the least.  
  
“We had to come here, see. It’s where the opening is.”  
  
“Opening? Like a Hellmouth?”  
  
“Sort of. And sort of not. In that spinney over there is the entrance to a world below, yes. Not a convergence, like dear old Sunny D was; more of a storage vault. Ancient stuff, kept there for safety. ‘Cept something got out, didn’t it?”  
  
“Got out?” Dawn was bewildered. This seemed to have nothing at all to do with following Buffy to England. What was she actually doing here, then?  
  
Succinctly, Spike told her about Fred and about Illyria. He even described his first flight, in Angel’s executive jet, which made Dawn choke with laughter. When he reached their visit to the Deeper Well, however, she sobered. “I understand. You made the only choice you could make. I see how much it hurts still. But what I don’t get is why we are here, now?”  
  
“We’ve been played, pet. Remember our friend of a year ago? The bloke who could be anyone dead he chose? He didn’t exactly go away like we wanted. Just resting.”  
  
“Resting?”  
  
“Like a Norwegian Blue.” Dawn’s blank face alerted him to a gap in her pop culture. “Never mind. Just not dead. Or deceased. Or anything else bleeding permanent. Seen him a lot of late, I have. Not a whole load of fun either. Made me decide we had to come here. Get to the bottom of it.”  
  
“Made you? In the sense of forcing you at gunpoint? Mental manipulation? And,” her voice acquired just the faintest of edges, “exactly when did you plan to explain all this to me?”  
  
Spike shifted, and not because the straw as uncomfortable. “Just trusted to time on that one. That’s just me. I plan well.,” he winced at her expression of incredulity, “ – yes I do! Not so good at following through, I admit, but the ideas always line up properly. To start with at least. Assumed I’d hand you over to the Slayer, didn’t I?”  
  
“Hand me over?” Dawn dismissed the topic. This was a good way to get into a conversation of the sort Andrew excelled in: interminable and pointless. “OK. Let’s abandon this line of talk. What do you plan, now, for us to do, now? And note the plural pronoun. Not optional, buddy. Talk.”  
  
“Wait here till dark. Ditch the squeaky runt. Go over to the trees. Then wait and see what happens.”  
  
“In terms of a plan? That sucks. You think we can get rid of the keenest, geekiest nerd in this or any other country a second time? Velcro guy himself? And why, anyway?”  
  
“You really need to ask? Bit, these people – things – entities – are dangerous. The little boy is a pain, but not so big a pain that I want them battening on him for all eternity. That’s why I’d really rather ditch you too. Sure it’s not an option?”  
  
Dawn had a resolve face which was every bit as convincing as Willow’s had ever been. Spike sighed. Bloody Summers women.  
  
“OK. Here’s the plan, then. Before the little geek comes back we vanish – up into the hayloft perhaps. We hang out till he stops looking, wait till it’s well into dusk, then cross that field. After that, we resort to my usual policy.”  
  
“Which is?”  
  
“Make it up as we go along.”


	18. A Meeting of Minds

  
  
The young man looked at Buffy, gaze travelling from her head downwards, then up again. His face became perplexed. “Hwa bist? Acwiðe !”*  
  
Buffy turned to Giles, as confused as the newcomer. “What’s he saying? Who is he?”  
  
“Oddly enough, he’s saying almost exactly what you just said. He’s just using an older form of English, that’s all.”  
  
“That’s English?” Incredulously, Buffy took a step towards him. Althanea stiffened and flung a hand forward in an unmistakeable gesture.  
  
“Buffy, stay back. He might attack!”  
  
Buffy smiled thinly, “You think I can’t take him?”  
  
Giles moved to her side. “I know you can – that is our worry. We need him on our side, not fighting it.” He pulled a notebook from his inside pocket, thumbed to a page near the middle and started reading. “Ic þe ábene asprecan. Bist þe Witleof?”**  
  
Buffy tugged at his arm. “Giles, are you **_trying to converse with him_**? Who is he? What’s he doing here? What are we doing here for that matter?”  
  
Giles turned his disappointed look on her. “Buffy, I am talking in old English. Very old English. I need to check if this young man is who we think he is.”  
  
Miss Hartness coughed. “Rupert, I know you are very proud of your language skills, but you are working from a text-book. If he doesn’t speak the dialect Dr Sweet transcribed, we have problems. We don’t have much time – why not just let Althanea do a Babel spell?”  
  
Rupert Giles’s face fell; he looked almost sulky. Buffy sternly controlled her sympathetic instinct. This was a man who still had a lot of explanation to do, and indulging his wish to chat in archaic languages could only delay the showdown she was still adamant would occur. “There’s a translation spell? Do it. Like ten minutes ago, OK?”  
  
Oscar opened, then shut his mouth. It was wiser only to take sides when it was clear which would win.   
  
Althanea held out a hand to Miss Hartness, who took it almost without looking. They started to hum once more, then opened their mouths into a wordless tone which ascended and descended. Somehow they synchronised their breathing so that there was no discernible gap, and the two voices interwove in a remarkable harmony. In the midst of this each witch tossed a handful of herbs above her head; the wind caught the fragments and twisted and whirled them until they fell, scattered on the heads of all present.   
  
There was a moment of silence. Then the young man stepped forward. He halted mid-stride, as if stopped by an invisible barrier, and scowled. “Would one of you people tell me what the fuck is going on?”  
  
Rupert Giles went into emergency mode. He polished his spectacles vigorously to allow himself time to think. Oscar strode to his side and cleared his throat.  
  
Not a good idea. Rupert intercepted his brief pause. “Witleof, I presume? My – er – apologies for your present constraints. I’m afraid my friends and I need your assurance that you will make no attack before we are able to liberate you.”  
  
The young man’s face darkened. “You dare to present conditions? I am Witleof of Fernham, son of the eorl. Who are you?”  
  
“I am Rupert, son of Giles, of the mighty Council of Watchers.”  
  
Witleof started back. “A Watcher? Why are you here?” He looked around himself, seeing it as if for the first time. “Where are we? Explain.”  
  
“We are where you have always been, though its name has changed several times. When we are is a more pertinent question for you.”  
  
Buffy coughed. “I think a little more explanation would be welcome here too.”  
  
Oscar intervened. “Buffy, this is Witleof. He lived here when Penda was king of Mercia.”  
  
“Clear as mud, little Giles.” Buffy kept this beneath her breath, “So that’s his name. I get it. He told us that himself. But someone needs to explain why he’s here before I get radically antsy. An antsy Slayer is not a happy Slayer. And a happy Slayer’s the best sort to have.”  
  
Althanea stood and moved calmly, fluidly to the side of the newcomer. “We summoned you, boy. We think it is your time to repay at last.” She looked at Giles. “We can take the restraints off, or loosen them a little – whatever you wish. He might be more amenable if you sat down with him and explained a little more.”  
  
Five minutes later Buffy had reached the detailed phase. “So, he betrayed an entire camp to vampires?”  
  
“Yes – they had promised him wealth beyond his dreams if he showed them the way to this place. A large encampment of warriors was established just beyond that barn. The place the vampires wanted to reach was beyond them. So he walked up to the sentries and gave the password. He was invited inside the camp – and his companions with him. I don’t need to draw a more detailed picture for you, do I?”  
  
Buffy was staring at the young man with revulsion.   
  
“Watcher, you are telling only half the story. Did those evil vampires survive? No, they did not!”  
  
“Ah, no. I was forgetting. You led the vampires to the Well, then trapped them in netting to wait for the sunrise. Carefully-planned and executed in every sense of the word. You feel we should applaud you for this?”  
  
Buffy felt totally nauseous now. This slight, spare young man, quite attractive, really, had destroyed humans and vampires with equal zest. And showed no remorse. She was well aware her own (two) vampires had done as much harm, and more often, but at least they had an excuse. The Evil Undead were supposed to be evil as well as undead. This had been a normal young man. For whatever value of “normal” could actually be made to work in this case.  
  
Witleof was scowling now. “I think I’ve paid for it, haven’t I? What’s happened to my world? I’ve been held here in limbo with occasional visits from you Watcher clerks. How long? You gits won’t even tell me that much.”  
  
“I think it’s fair to tell you that your family, such of it that survived the vampires, died out a thousand or so years ago. Is that what you wanted to hear?”  
  
The young man’s face was grey. Buffy could almost feel sorry for him. He swallowed, hard, then again. “So, is it time for me to be let out yet? Have you clerics finished torturing me?”  
  
“I am no cleric, though I can read, which is more, I’ll wager, than you can do. I think the end of your waiting may be near, though, yes. This is why we have summoned you and why I must have your oath, for what that is worth, that you will make no attempt to harm me or any of my party. Your assistance would be useful, yes, but without that oath, sworn on your own blood and body, we will manage without you and send you back to the darkness.”  
  
“Way to go with the speechifying, Giles,” muttered Buffy.   
  
Witleof looked around, as if for help. Oscar, the witches, Giles and Buffy stared back at him, implacable.  
  
“I accept. Give me a knife.” Althanea solemnly handed over a tiny fruit knife, far too small for use as a weapon.  
  
Witleof braced himself and stared into the sun. “I swear by my own blood,” he slashed a gouge across his upper arm, “and by my own body,” he smeared blood from the gash down each arm and across his face, “that I will remain loyal to Rupert, son of Giles of the Watchers, and will harm neither him nor those under his protection. May my body burn, my brains fry and my heart wither if I break this vow.”  
  
There was a silence, then Althanea and Miss Hartness waved incense sticks in a complex pattern, chanted a few words of what might well have been Latin, and there was a strong sense of pressure being released.  
  
Just for a moment everyone relaxed. Oscar and Althanea escorted Witleof to a mounting block which could serve as a bench, while Giles and Miss Hartness gathered the occult paraphernalia to return to the car.   
  
Giles closed the boot and turned to rest his back against the vehicle. His jaw dropped, just a little, at what he saw. Of all the people in all the places in the world…  
  
“Oh. Em. Gee. It’s Mr Giles. My Mentor and father of my soul!” Andrew dropped the basket he had been struggling to carry and rushed to grasp an unwilling Giles by the hand, or hug him. Or possibly even kiss him. His intention was unclear, but the general gist was not.  
  
“Andrew. What are you doing here and what have you done with my sister?”  
  
In another world Buffy’s tone might have been described as Bene Gesserit. Andrew’s blood faded from his face and he sat down abruptly on the scrubby grass by the gate. Suddenly it seemed explanations, never his strongest point, were about to dominate his future.  
  


 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Translations of the Anglo-Saxon:
> 
> * Who are you? Speak!  
> ** I bid thee speak - art thou Witleof?


	19. Dusk Approaches

  
  
Spike had that uncanny vampire ability to lie preternaturally still for hours, blending into his surroundings until he was next to invisible.  
  
Dawn knew he had that ability. After their first hour in the loft together she had moved on from wishing that he would use it to praying that he would.  
  
That there was something he was not telling her was hardly difficult to work out. His habit of striding to the other end of the hayloft and talking in a low but incessant voice to someone or something just out of sight was a clue. His interminable pacing back and forth was another. Finally there was his trick of freezing instantly, head tilted, nostrils flaring as he listened intently to some sound that was either below Dawn’s threshold or totally imaginary.  
  
After the first hour she attempted to ask him what was going on. He hissed at her, put his forefinger to his lips and turned his back pointedly. If this was “making it up as he went along”, she was suddenly all in favour of precise planning.  
  
After the second hour she followed him. What else was there to do and where the hell was Andrew anyway?  
  
As soon as he realised she was there he scowled and closed his mouth firmly. Was that supposed to make her less intrigued or something?  
  
One hour later she’d had quite enough. It would seem that Andrew had gone to Fortnum and Mason’s, or possibly Harrods for the blood. (Yes, she had not spent much time in London, but she had used wisely what little there was, thank you very much.) He had to be accounted MIA. The sun was beginning to get lower, the shadows longer. Very soon now their not-so-tame vampire would sprint off to deal with whatever Big Bad he had identified, almost certainly without telling her a thing. It was act now or leave him to it.  
  
The next time his pacing brought him towards her she stood up and blocked his turn. “Spike, it’s hours till dark. I need to find some stuff out. I need you to help me.” She turned on the huge, soulful eyes. That usually worked.  
  
“Bit, I know I’m putty in your tiny hands, but now isn’t such a good time, pet.”  
  
“Why not? We have so many other things to do, right? I have a whole load of staring at the roof and sighing to get done, with a side of being ignored by a stupid vampire for added fun.” She didn’t quite stamp her foot, but her arms were crossed, Buffy-style, and her direct gaze sent an unmistakeable message.  
  
Spike sighed. “OK, I’m saying it once and that’s your lot. Remember the visitor we kept getting that last year in good old Sunny D? The untouchable type? It’s around again.”  
  
“So that’s why you’re so big with the doominess? So, what do we do?”  
  
“Not a lot we can do. Dawn, your sister would stake me in a heartbeat if she thought I was leading you back into that sort of trouble. She’d be right to do that and all. Which is why I want you up here, nice and cosy-like, while I deal with the visitor somewhere else.” He looked at her intently, the plea in his eyes almost irresistible.  
  
Almost. “Woman up, Dawn” she muttered to herself. Then, more audibly. “Spike. We had this conversation three hours ago. How many apocalypses have I seen with you? What makes you believe in your little blonde head that I’m going to give up and hide out? I want to know where we are, why that creep is chasing you and why you wanted Andrew out of the way. And pronto, Mister.”  
  
Spike looked trapped, always an amusing look on him, but not enough to distract her. At last he gave in.  
  
“We’re near a place called the Deeper Well. I was here before, a couple of months ago. It didn’t go well. Used to have a Guardian; Angel saw him off. Which he bleeding well shouldn’t have done. Now it’s wide open and attracting beasties like an open Hellmouth would.”  
  
“And you’re the only being who can put a stop to them?” Dawn sounded less than convinced.  
  
“Possibly. All I know is that that First bleeder has been trying to stop me getting there as much as he’s tried to stop me meeting your sis. Has to be a reason for that, I reckon. Lots of weird things down there – bloody powerful ones at that. It needs closing. Angel’s not around and I was with him last time he came, so I may be the only one with any idea how to do it.”  
  
“And dancing sunlight makes it so easy for you to do that on your own?”  
  
“Look, you silly bint. It’s English summer, innit? Thought I could rely on it pissing down, or at least enough cloud cover to stay uncrispy. Not the case, so I’m stuck till dark, OK? Meanwhile our friend is doing its best to persuade me it’s all a stupid idea. We’re doomed, I tell ye. Doomed.”  
  
His voice had taken on a strange Scots twang. Dawn had no idea why. “So, your strategy now is what? Listen to him?”  
  
“Listen and plan, pet. He won’t like it up him, that’s for sure. All I have to do is check I’m ready. Two hours to go now, I reckon.”  
  
“And how does this well thing get closed? Something ooky, might it be?”  
  
“That’s the rub, love.” As if to illustrate, Spike was rubbing the back of his neck. He was suddenly solemn. “I think something has to go down there – replace what got took out a while back. Something more than human.”  
  
“Took out?”  
  
His expression took on that focussed, intent look she’d seen once or twice before, but only ever when things were serious. Deadly serious. “Look, love. It takes a bit of explaining. Last time we were here – that’s me and Captain Hair Gel – we failed. Badly, and at something we really, really needed to get right. It’s tough just thinking of it.”  
  
“So now it’s your duty to make it right? Solo?”  
  
“Something like that, yeah.”  
  
Stupid vampire. Being stupid. “You could call on the entire resources of Buffy’s team, you know…”  
  
He cut into her speech. His voice grated. “You’d have thought so, wouldn’t you? Turns out, not so much. Not when it really mattered.”   
  
Dawn slumped back against a straw bale. The sharp edges cut into the skin at the back of her legs, but she barely noticed as she stared at Spike, comprehension opening her eyes and mouth. “You mean you asked for help? And you were refused?”  
  
He nodded, lips compressed, eyes cast down. “Way I see it, your sis had a good reason. Angel took a walk on the grey side this last year. He thought he could use evil for good, but I was never so sure. Even less so, now. Not such a surprise Giles and the geek boy turned us down, left us out in the cold. Don’t think they were right, mind, but I get why they did.”  
  
There was way too much to process here. **_Giles_** had known Spike was still alive? **_Giles_** had turned down a desperate appeal for help?   
  
“I’m sorry. I don’t understand.”  
  
“Not the time to talk about it now. The thing is, there’s just me left. And that First wanker wants to stop me, so it looks like it’s important to get it done. Dunno what exactly, but these things usually demand blood.”  
  
Dawn was feeling even less in control now. “So, what? You’re going to jump into a big hole in the ground? Spike, I lost a sister that way, once. I can’t lose someone else who matters to me like that.”  
  
His face softened at once, blue eyes full of concern. Dawn wasn’t particularly interested in blonds eight times her age, but there were times she could work out what Buffy saw in him – the sheer vulnerability, the slight wobble of the lips, the openness of expression made the onlooker as susceptible as him.  
  
“Never saw it that way, Dawn. Sorry, pet. No, I can’t promise anything, but no kamikaze jumps in my immediate plans. I can swear to that.”  
  
There didn’t seem to be a lot more to say. She settled down on the dusty boards and patted the space next to her. “You know, the more you chat with it, the more openings you give it to hit where it hurts. How about you stay and talk to me instead? I can pinch you on occasion to prove I’m real, if you like. I’d really like to hear about how you got to Italy from LA, if you don’t mind.”  
  
Two more hours to wait till the shadows were long enough to offer protection. Talking would pass them as well as any. Dawn settled down on the rough planks, ready to listen.  
  
Spike opened his mouth, then stilled, his head tilted in a familiar listening posture. “Don’t move. Don’t make any noise,” he whispered, “I can hear something moving down below – and it isn’t Andrew.”

 

 


	20. Evening Shadows.

  
  
In principle, it was as easy as it had ever been to get Andrew to talk. The merest ghost of a threat had always been enough to induce babbling, and this time Giles didn’t need to do much more than jerk his head at the Range Rover and ask Buffy if she needed him to fetch the Krooklock as a weapon. It was much harder for Buffy to keep a straight face. The group around them mostly looked perplexed, Witleof most of all.   
  
Andrew slumped for a moment, then his eyes brightened. He had A Secret to divulge, and that sort of power always excited him. That this secret was Romantic, Historic and Deeply Moving didn’t hurt any, either. Nobody but Andrew could hear it, but there was definitely a fifty-piece orchestra producing swelling music in the background.  
  
Andrew straightened his posture and pulled his shoulders back. Taking a deep breath, he opened his mouth. Then he stopped, his attention drawn by the odd angle at which Witleof was leaning. The Saxon pressed forward against the invisible barrier, frustrated by its solidity and looking more than a little ludicrous as his nose and cheek were squashed by the wall of air.   
  
“Who is this, Mister Giles?” Andrew asked, all his importance returned to him. “From the distortion of his features I greatly fear this may be a demon of some power. Is it right that he should hear our secrets?”  
  
Respected Watchers do not roll their eyes. Ever. No matter what the temptation. They take a deep breath, wince internally and respond in a civilised fashion.  
  
“Andrew, there is a great deal that you do not know. Much more than you do know, in fact. Leave me to be the judge, please?”  
  
Andrew adopted his familiar sulk face. “Only trying to help. How can I know what’s the what if nobody tells me? Or even greets me? I thought I was part of the team, you know?” He clamped his lips together. Whatever exciting information he had to share, Giles and the others were spared from the recital for a little while at least. Not exactly the plan, but at least they could move forward with their original intention.  
  
“I have no idea what this young man is doing here, Rupert, but perhaps we could continue?” Oscar’s voice, oddly echoing his own thoughts, broke in. Usually his brother thinking on the same wavelength was not a good omen, but it could hardly be an issue this time.  
  
“Precisely, Oscar. This young man is one of our trainee Watchers, who joined us last year after we were forced to move our base somewhat abruptly. Andrew, this is my brother, Oscar.”  
  
Introductions over, the group returned their attention to Witleof. He was on his mounting block again, looking as frustrated as before, while Althanea did her best to soothe him. Miss Hartness briskly explained that he would be returned to his home as soon as he had helped them with a minor matter, and Oscar did his best to conjure obedience with language which would have been pompous in any situation and which Buffy found particularly ridiculous in a farmyard where the shadows were lengthening, the breeze was becoming chill and there was very little evidence of a purpose in their presence.  
  
Buffy’s attention wandered. Not exactly the most unusual event, but this was a very pretty place, with frothy white blossom cascading over dark hedges and emerald leaves contrasting with the pale gold stone of the farm buildings which glowed in the long, level rays of the late sun. When Giles said, “Is that OK by you, Buffy?”, she didn’t feel it was polite to admit that her mind had been miles away, wondering what a certain stupid individual with fake gold hair might be doing right now, when he should be right here apologising to her, so she simply nodded.  
  
Oscar, slightly alarmingly, grabbed one of her hands, and his brother took the other. She saw she was at the centre of a human chain, with the witches at each end, and found herself drawn forward, matching slow, steady steps with the others. The line advanced on Witleof, curving a little to enclose him, and he stood, shaking a little, moving to his rear one uncertain step at a time.  
  
Behind them, Andrew coughed and, when that failed to attract significant attention, squeaked. “Mr Giles? I think there’s something you ought to know before you move very much further that way.”  
  
He was ignored. Rupert Giles winced, just a little, and Oscar grimaced at the tactlessness of trying to interrupt a containment ritual. Althanea and Miss Hartness, holding the end positions, had started to hum again. Buffy, in the centre, was conscious of an eerie silence behind her. The birds had quietened, and Andrew’s mouth was mercifully still.  
  
Pace by slow pace Witleof was moved to the open door of the barn. The voices of Giles and his brother joined in the music, creating a harmony of intent focus. The young man at the centre seemed to be struggling, now, spreading his arms to each side, gripping the door frame with what looked almost like desperation.  
  
Simultaneous tugs on each hand told Buffy to stop. Rupert Giles began to intone. “Betrayer of your people, harken to me. Now is the hour when you may be redeemed or fall forever downward.”  
  
“Betrayer of your purchaser, hearken to me. Now is the hour when you may stand once more for what is right, or fall forever downward.” Althanea’s voice sounded deeper.  
  
Oscar joined in, “Betrayer of your oath, hearken to me. Now is the hour when you may fight the undead to restore life, or fall forever downward.”  
  
Miss Hartness, her precise, clipped voice sounding out of place, continued, “Betrayer of humanity, hearken to me. Now is the hour for you to return what may be returned, atone for what has been removed, or fall forever downward.”  
  
Her companions all looked directly at Buffy. What was she supposed to say? Hello, briefing much appreciated here. She had no formula, as the others clearly had, and no idea how to find one. Still, that she was expected to speak was beyond question. “Betrayer of yourself? Hearken to me. Do what needs to be done. Or falling will occur.”  
  
The air around them seemed to sigh and relax. Witleof stepped forward, waving his hand through the air as if he had expected to find it solid. He cocked his head to one side for a moment, a gesture Buffy would have preferred him not to make. Then he spoke. “One of you does not call on me. Is he for me, then?”  
  
Giles looked round, startled. “Who? No, that’s Andrew. He is not of my party. In fact I haven’t the first idea what he is doing here. But he is under my protection, as are all mortals on this farm. Now, enter into the building and begin your quest.”  
  
Witleof looked fleetingly disappointed, then turned and shrugged. He stepped, head high, into the dark doorway, and was seen no more.  
  
Andrew tiptoed up to a position just behind Buffy. Really, could he _be_ more annoying? He cleared his throat tentatively and nodded toward the door.   
  
“Buffy, I really, really need to tell you something now. It’s really important.” He all but tugged at her sleeve. “That barn? It’s not empty – is your blond friend going to cause trouble? “  
  
The linked hands dropped instantly. Giles turned a face of sheer rage on Andrew. “Are you telling me Dawn’s in there? You stupid, silly little man. Why did you waste time and let us start the ritual with out telling us? Have you any idea what you may have started?”  
  
From within the barn there was a sudden crashing sound, as if a heap of farm implements had fallen from some height. There was a high-pitched male yell, and a female scream.  
  
Then, in the following silence, Andrew fainted dead away.  
  
Buffy stepped away to avoid being hit by his inert body. Really, she had other things on her mind right now. The noise from the barn continued, a mixture of male shouts, female protestations and farm implements from the sound of it hitting walls, floors, bodies – who knew?   
  
“Giles.” She gave him an impressively determined expression. “I am going in there.”  
  
“Buffy, I’m not sure you can. We have some very powerful wards in place, and if they were to be broken who knows what Witleof might do?”  
  
“Listen to me. Watch my lips. Dawn is in there. She has to be – why else would Andrew be here?” She pointed at the heap on the ground, now moaning gently to itself.   
  
Giles nodded. “I see that, Buffy. It’s not really like her to stay safely in Italy if Andrew’s here, is it?” He turned to the older witch. “I think we may have a slight emergency on our hands here.”

 

 


	21. Dusk and Dust

  
  
Spike pressed one finger to his own lips and one to Dawn’s, then gestured to her to move back away from the edge of the hayloft. They retreated soundlessly until they had a stack of hay bales to provide screening, then Spike leaned in, his lips almost touching Dawn’s ear, his cool breath causing an odd tickle.  
  
“Don’t want you getting any heroic ideas here, pet. Sounds like something nasty’s down there. Not your problem - I’m the go-to guy for the nasties. No arguments please.”  
  
Dawn’s face was mutinous but she nodded her acceptance, before grasping a tuft of blond curls in a fist and bringing his ear to the level of her own mouth. “I get to watch. And if it looks real bad, I get to scream. Distraction can work in your favour that way. No arguments?”  
  
Spike took care not to sigh. Bloody Summers women. He returned her nod, then grasped her firmly by the shoulders. “Give me three minutes before you so much as move from here. Promise?”   
  
He checked her hands for crossed fingers as she whispered “yes”. Tricksy girl, this. No problem there, though; he could trust her at least half as far as he could throw her on this one. He pushed her gently back against the hay bales and turned to retrace his steps without even a faint susurrus of breeze.  
  
Back at the opening to the floor below he paused. Head on one side, he listened intently. He turned and lowered his feet over the edge, and dropped lightly to the floor. So far, not bad. He stayed in the crouched position in which he had landed, sharpening his brows in order to bring all his senses into play.  
  
Something behind him felt – off. No smell, for one thing. That never came out well. He turned, still keeping low, and dived off to his left as he did so.   
  
In front of him was a short, muscular, blond man of indeterminate age and considerable muscles to his arms, What the hell – was someone taking the piss? Clones were not part of the game, especially without warning and no access to his undead DNA. Not that he had any real idea whether this git looked like he did, though the leather outfit and blinding white hair were clues.  
  
“You really have got to be taking the piss this time.” His opening gambit was hardly original, but he’d given up on that days back. “Is that what I look like now or is it just a big joke to you?”  
  
The stranger leapt back, grunting. Unusual – the First Git was usually all too bloody articulate.   
  
Then it charged. Spike stepped aside, timing it perfectly. It kept on running, predictably enough. Until, that is, its foot met Andrew’s bag. With an astonishingly corporeal clunk the man, for so, it seemed, it was, went flying, skidding along the hay-strewn ground, decorated with a shower of delicate plastic figures. He landed in a cranny, his head between two bales, his torso decorated with figures from one of the more disappointing _Star Wars_ films.   
  
_Right, Spike. Corporeal. Rethink._ A small, wiry and very angry opponent was picking himself up and wrenching the first thing that came to his hand away from the wall to act as a weapon. It was of course a long, pointed sliver of wood. Bloody marvellous.  
  
The stranger scowled and muttered under his breath. Vampire hearing enabled Spike to recognise it was not language for sharing in polite company. Boy not happy, then. Good.  
  
Spike balanced lightly on the balls of his feet, all his senses fully alert, a total focus on his opponent. He lowered his body to a half-squat, arms open, looking as close as he could get to a figure about to lunge.   
  
A telltale muscle twitch and the young man rushed headlong forward. Neat; sometimes the easy ones worked. As the figure closed in on him, Spike grasped his wrists and threw himself backwards. His opponent was pulled towards him, like it or not, and off-balance, just as Spike liked them. Going with the roll, Spike landed on his back, both feet pulled up and planted directly in the abdomen, then kicked out, throwing his victim into an unwilling somersault which landed him crash on his back behind them both.  
  
In a single practised move Spike flipped to his feet and jumped to face his assailant. You had to give him credit for stamina and determination at least – he was already standing and ready to run again. Deliberately growling, curving his hands into nailed claws and allowing his vampire face to come out, Spike made as if to grab for the neck, then sidestepped at the last moment, hooking the trailing foot round the hurtling young man’s ankle. Not surprisingly, he continued in a low arc and hit the barn floor with his nose, sliding along a yard or two before halting. There was a rather tasty smell from the nosebleed.  
  
Shaken and in all probability stirred, the stranger twisted, but Spike had no desire to give him time or space to react further. In a second he was sitting on his chest, leaning forward, fangs open in a grin intended to disturb, and left hand firmly gripping a wrist. Just a little pressure, a slight twist, and the hand opened, the weapon falling to the floor.  
  
“No need for that, mate. We’re all pals round here. Right?”  
  
Underneath him there was a struggle, but he was in charge, no doubt about that. “Now, pal. Care to tell me what’s the what? Your name, for example? Or is it a guessing game? Goldilocks? Blondie Boy?”  
  
A string of indistinguishable words. Seriously – impossible to recognise. Was this even English? “Speak slowly. If you want me to know what hell you’re planning for me, you have to tell me in a way I can understand, you know?”  
More angry grunting. German, perhaps? Dutch? Didn’t feel quite right – some of it was oddly familiar, but old, older than himself by a long way.  
  
He shook the neck lightly. Not gonna feed, but this ape didn’t know that and it might just work. “Come on, mate. Who the hell are you? And why are you here? Looking for me or what? Sheer chance? Not buying that one little tiny bit.”  
  
The stranger spoke, more slowly, an attempt to be clear, perhaps. “Witleof. Ic áhætee Witleof, þú, áglæca!”  
  
Great. Clear as mud. But the word repeated, that might be his name. What next? You Tarzan, me Spike? You throwback, me monster?  
  
The figure beneath him spoke again, at some length and, if the expression meant anything, with some irritation.  
  
Two voices chimed with the stranger’s. Dawn’s: “Spike? You OK there? What did you do with the ladder?”  
  
And from the door, the voice of his dreams and of his nightmares. “Brawling, Spike? Now why am I not surprised?”


	22. Gathering Gloom

The sun had shaken off its mantle of cloud, and the last rays striped the dusty floor of the barn. There were not enough of them, nor were they strong enough in the fading daylight, to do much harm, though Spike had done his best to avoid them during his struggle. A pity, then, that a solitary, vagrant beam glanced across his face just as he jerked his head up to respond to the remembered, beloved voice, and his first response to the girl he had missed so much was a yelp followed swiftly by a swear word.  
  
His was not the only voice. Dawn’s urgent now, repeated her inquiry. The stranger once more loosed a stream of, presumably, invective.  
  
The woman at the door leant lightly against the jamb, arms folded and her expression conveying irritation of the profoundest kind.  
  
Dawn, above, was also irritated. Enough time had passed, there was no sign of any great danger, and she had only promised to stay there as long as peril existed. She’d asked if it was OK and been ignored; no Summers woman should stand for that. She swung herself round and groped with one foot for the top rung of the ladder. It was all very well for stupid vampires to drop ten feet and land, cat-like, ready for action. Proper people required ladders.  
  
The ladder rested against the wall, and she had to wave her foot around in an unnecessarily balletic manner before she finally made contact, hooked the necessary tool with one foot and dragged it closer. She reached down to settle it firmly against the beam before entrusting her weight to it, and lowered herself gingerly at first and then with more confidence.  
  
Misplaced confidence, it turned out. The ladder twisted on the one foot which had been firmly in contact with the ground and slid sideways, raking the edge of the hayloft as it fell and dragging Dawn downwards with it. She yelped. It was _not_ a scream. Then she fell, with impressive accuracy, directly on the heap of male flesh beneath her.  
  
_Then_ she screamed.  
  
Spike turned his head sharply, a reflex trained into him by many years of Dawn-saveage. At the same moment the man beneath him surged up to grip his throat. “Nice trick, mate – if I had to breathe,” muttered Spike, using up all the air he did have, before heaving back.  
  
Buffy stalked forward, gripped and lifted Dawn, just as the inchoate mass beneath her threatened to tip her off. She set her down with exaggerated care, teeth gritted as she said just one word, “Tuesday?”  
  
Then she turned to the next on the pile, the vampire, lost for breath and thus for words, for a nice change. She grasped his neck, as she might an annoying puppy, and flung him bodily away from the scrap. He landed near the doorway and scrabbled to his feet, his brows shifting into lumpy mode, “Bloody hell, Buffy! Leave a bloke some dignity, won’t you?” There was only just so much even he could take.  
  
Buffy scowled and turned her attention to Witleof. None-too-gently, she hauled him to his feet, gripping his arm moderately painfully. “I will not. Stand. For. Brawling.” She hissed the words, and a look of alarm crossed the face of the young warrior. He had not been used to warrior women in his day.  
  
From the dark corner farthest from the door there came an odd sound of applause. Into the light strolled a young man, the sheer planes of his face cut from marble, the determined curls of his ice-white hair slicked back. He clapped with irony and a smile. “Nice work, love”  
  
There was no movement in the barn. For a moment even breathing seemed suspended. Witleof’s eyes grew wider and his eyebrows lifted half an inch. He stared frantically at the doorway then back towards the corner. Dawn edged towards Buffy, her whole posture signalling fear and aggression. Safely beside her sister, she straightened. “Who are you?” she asked.  
  
“I think you know, cutie.”  
  
Spike, the real, undead Spike, muttered, “You'll find out on Saturday.” Buffy glared at him, then turned the full expression on his doppelganger.  
  
“I know. We’ve met. Now go away.” Her voice was flat, stony.  
  
“Now, now, love. No need to be like that.”  
  
Spike propelled himself forward. “You heard the lady. Bugger off.”  
  
An ecstatic smile. “You really shouldn’t talk that way to yourself, you know. People will talk.”  
  
“You are not me.” Loathing and suppressed tension were in Spike’s voice.  
  
“Ah, but I am. Do you want me to prove it? Shall I remind you what you said to Anya in that magic shop? Or what you said to the Slayer that time you got all over-excited in her bathroom?”  
  
Dawn blanched. This was dangerous territory. Neither Spike, her Spike, nor Buffy moved.  
  
Witleof struggled upright and, lightly balanced on the balls of his feet, started to circle round behind the strange creature which matched his opponent.  
  
“Tell the caveman to stop, Bit,” the fake Spike said, his voice bored. “Or I will have to put him in orbit so fast even the satellites won’t see him pass.”  
  
Dawn tilted her head. What the hell was that about? Why was there an extra shade of annoyance in her Spike’s own face? She could take a hint, though. She raised one hand and used the other arm to bar Witleof’s way. For a moment she thought she might be the one to be sent flying, when he grunted and gripped her wrist with both his own hands, but he paused after a moment. He spoke urgently, swiftly but incomprehensibly. Dawn blinked.  
  
From the doorway came a voice. “Ábíde!” Dawn and Witleof turned. Giles stood there, a near-halo of light around his head. “Sette ond eftsette!” Dawn stared as Witleof dropped meekly to the floor and sat cross-legged.  
  
The doorway was crowded as Giles and his companions pushed forward. Spike, the new Spike, whistled. “Nice one, Rupert. Who knew you could make the monkeys perform for you like that?” He strolled over to a stack of wood and leant against it negligently.  
  
The Spike she’d been with for the last week snarled and started forward, a glint of yellow in his eyes. Giles raised a commanding hand and, to her astonishment, Spike stopped, as still as the figure on the floor.  
  
Giles spoke again, his voice level but threatening, “You are not what you pretend to be. We know what you are, and we guess what you want. We are stronger than you imagine. I give you this one chance – go now, go far away, and give us no more trouble. Or we will destroy you. We have weakened you before. This time we will not stop until we have ended you.”  
  
The figure clapped once more, slowly and derisively. “Fee, fi, fo, fum. I small the blood of an Englishman. A Little Englander, no less. You think you rule the world, Rupes? You don’t even rule this corner of Oxfordshire!” He grew and changed as he did so, his face distorting horribly, his body becoming reptilian, sinuous. He spat, and his spittle caught fire in mid-air, landing on the stack of hay bales which took up half the barn.  
  
The creature kept growing, twisting, spewing flame, till it stood as tall as the roof. Then a point of light appeared in its midriff and split wide open, engulfing the entire apparition before it vanished.  
  
Only Dawn noticed this, though. The inferno in the process of consuming half the barn was taking the entire attention of the rest of the group.

  



	23. Unexpected Warmth

His own flammability had never particularly bothered Spike. Bloody nuisance at times, yes. Reason to change his plans? Not on your bleeding Nellie.

That was as a general rule, mind you. Towering Inferno at one end of the only room and sparkly bright sunshine outside – that was a bit of a buggeration. The presence in said room of most of the very few living people he could give any sort of shit about made it an actual crisis.

He looked around warily. Fireball-spitting was a new one on him. What else might the bastard be up to? No sign of it in any of its guises at least. And – aha – over by the ladder was what he thought he’d seen out of the corner of his eye – some big flappy paddles on the end of sticks. Now there was a nice coincidence if you like – if you have to have a fire it’s not bad to have firebeaters to hand.

With one bound he was a third of the way to the wall. Two more bounds - okay, jumps – and he was grasping several of the things. “Slayer!” he yelled, launching one of them directly at his girl. This had to beat a syrupy reunion any time – just Buffy and him fighting the odds as they were meant to do.

 

Oh yes, and all the pillocks who’d come along for the ride. Mustn’t forget them. He threw a beater to Giles who nodded briefly and started to use the thing vigorously.

 

Another went to Andrew. He dropped it. Dawn leapt at it and was attacking the flaming bales before the little runt had spotted where it had gone to. That wasn’t part of Spike’s plan. Victorian gentleman here; women not endowed with superpowers weren’t risking their lives on his watch.

 

At that point three more women flooded in behind him. No, two women and a strange-looking man with the ponciest tie he’d seen for a long while. What was he, a tweedy hippy? They all reached out for beaters and Spike sidestepped them – at least the weapons to fight the flames were in hands which mostly seemed to know what to do with them.

 

The weirdo who only spoke foreign saw what the others were doing. Quick on the uptake, you had to grant him that. He started tearing at the untouched bales and flinging them away from the blaze. As the others beat at the sparks, he was creating a firebreak. It could only work if the inferno became more of a sort of campfire. A weedy little campfire at that. Not so much chance really but, hey, marks for trying.

 

Then the nearest thing to a miracle he’d seen since the last time he’d worked with Buffy happened. The two strange females stepped away from the burning straw, each holding - <i>holding</i> \- a small handful of flames in the left palm. With their right hands they laid their beaters down in the shape of a cross and tipped their mini-fires onto the exact centre. Then, of all the stupid things, they started singing! It was a warble, not a full-throated aria, but it got to you after a while. The intensity built and the echoes intertwined with the notes pouring from the mouths of the singers. _Echoes? In a barn?_

 

The tiny flames turned blue, with an emerald core. So did the flames in the main conflagration. The women – witches, it would seem – started to spiral round their strange symbol, weaving their hands in what was undoubtedly a mystical pattern, though if you’d asked Spike he’d have said it looked bloody stupid.

 

Nobody was asking Spike just then, which was probably just as well. The rest of the group had a total focus on the two witches as the flames which had fought back against the beaters subsided obediently under the spell. The barn was oddly quiet now, the notes of the song in a minor key, quiet, almost achingly sad. As the last flames guttered there was a moment of utter stillness.

 

“Right. That’s sorted. Now would someone mind telling me what the bloody hell’s going on?”

 

“Spike. I always could rely on you to sustain an atmosphere.” Giles looked weary, one hand inevitably reaching for his spectacles, the other diving into a pocket to retrieve an immaculate handkerchief.

 

“Thrilled to see you too, Rupes. Doesn’t answer my question, though. Nor explain who the hordes of happy wanderers are.”

 

The weird foreign blond bloke turned to Giles and started rattling away in whatever it was. Dutch? German? Pity there wasn’t a fish Spike could put in his ear. How in hell did the librarian know how to reply? He was chatting to the bloke, like old pals.

 

Buffy looked intently at him for a moment, then turned to her lady friends. “Miss Hartness? That translation spell? It might make all our lives easier in the next half hour if you could widen the mojo a bit.”

 

Oscar Giles frowned and seemed about to speak, but Althanea smiled. “I love the way you say things, Buffy. It’s so refreshing. I think we might be able to manage something. Your sister should stand here, next to me.”

 

“And my vampire?” The words were spoken without reflection, and Buffy only truly grasped what she had said when Spike’s head jerked up and he pinned her with one of his intense, crystalline gazes. His brows lifted in question, but he nodded when she fumbled a gesture at him and then moved to stand beside Dawn.

 

The two witches repeated their hum, moving slowly around the pair. Miss Hartness drew a small packet from a pocket and tore an edge, for all the world as if she were adding sauce mix to a broth. The contents spiralled upwards, glittering in the final rays of sunlight way up above their heads, then drifted down to coat the hair of both of them.

And, with a single bound, he could understand. This magic lark had its drawbacks, but there was no denying it had its uses too. Dawn shook her head, the dust falling in a glinting cascade, and looked at the witch. “Quick catch-up here? I’m Dawn.”

 

“Glad to meet you, Dawn – I have heard much about you. I am Althanea – your friend Willow may have mentioned my name? This is Witleof, a young man who is much, much older than he looks.”

 

“Isn’t everyone?” Dawn muttered. Then, louder, “Thank you. Who is the man there and this lady? It’s best to be clear about all of one’s company, I feel.”

 

There were swift introductions. Then the group stood in a rough circle, uncomfortable and unsure how to proceed, until Spike pulled up a part-consumed bale, set it upright and sat on it.

 

“I think it’s about time we stopped dancing round each other. Don’t you?”


	24. Dusk

In the end it looked like a weird board meeting. A row of hay bales occupied the centre, a sort of crude table, with Spike perched on his at one end and the Giles brothers on rough stools made from blocks of wood at the other. Buffy and Dawn faced the two witches, while Andrew and Witleof, unable to decide where to take up position, had to be pushed into place on either side of Spike.

There was a silence. Where to start? “Bugger this,” muttered Spike, as he unstoppered a flask and swigged deeply. Buffy glared at him and he shrugged, reclosed the flask and pocketed it. Then he stared at his hands. They could still surprise him: smooth, even nails, no hint of the black polish he had once seen as essential to his very identity; strong, capable fingers with calloused ridges near the palms.

Buffy stared up at the roof. Slivers of light came between the coarsely-planed planks, but with a decidedly blue tone now. The bars of sun across the floor had faded and dusk was clearly on its way. 

Dawn stared at her sister, then at Giles, then at her hands. She became interested in minute variations of tone and texture and the raggedness of one cuticle.

Giles, Rupert Giles, stared into nothing, for quite a long time. 

Oscar Giles broke the silence with a sniff. “Rupert, is this really the best use of our time? We are all here, where I assume you wanted us. What now?”

Rupert said nothing and stared intently at nothing.

Spike waited, looked at each face in turn, waited some more, then spoke, “Let me guess, Rupes. It’s about a well, yeah?”

Rupert Giles lifted his head. “I suppose I should have guessed you would know something. May I ask how and what?”

“Was here a month or two back – it’s how I knew where to go. Came with our broody friend from LA, looking for a hole and a way of putting something back in it. Found the hole. Didn’t find the way.”

The furrow between Rupert’s eyes deepened. “I feared it might have been something along those lines. Miss H, didn’t you tell me there was a disturbance of some kind a few months ago?”

Startled, the older witch nodded. “There certainly was. It was in March, if I remember rightly. It was, well, the closest I can get to it is some sort of psychic howl. Is that what you mean?”

“Yeah,” said Spike, “That would be it I reckon. We lost one of our team about then, and gained something from here in exchange.”  
  
Oscar Giles’s face changed colour. Not an attractive shade of purple at all. “Gained something?” His eyes bulged a little. “Gained something? Do you have any idea just how stupid, how moronic it is to tamper with the powers here?”

“Yes, kind of think I do, mate. Seen a bit in my time. Wasn’t exactly our choice. Right good lass she was, Fred.”

Buffy looked at him sharply and studied his expression for a moment before returning her attention to Oscar. His brother looked at him too.

“You know something about this place, brother dear? A moment ago you were implying you had no idea about the powers in this area.”   
  
Moving swiftly on as his brother choked, Rupert Giles addressed the group. “We are at the heart of a mystical convergence. No, not a Hellmouth, but somewhere of similar power. It seems to be somewhere our old adversary is interested in, and, to my surprise, I admit, somewhere Spike appears to have some knowledge of.”

Spike scowled, “Trying to pretend you didn’t blow Angel off when he asked for help about it, Rupert? Not convincing me very much.”

Dawn looked at both men in turn, astonished by the rising level of antagonism. “Do we need to do this now?” she asked, “Because I kinda think we might have quite important stuff to do too, if your squabble might wait.”

Buffy nodded. Her little sister was the sensible one. How did that happen? “We need to know where we are – all of us need to know. We also need to have the best idea we can of what we’re facing. And if anyone has anything in terms of a plan of action, now might be a good time to mention it.”

Rupert Giles cleared his throat, reached for spectacles and handkerchief, saw Buffy’s glare in time and spoke. “We are, as I said, at a sort of mystical convergence, a place known for centuries as The Deeper Well.”

Buffy fought back the urge to ask “Deeper than what?” and merely nodded encouragement.

“It is a sort of metaphysical storage place, of demons and ancient gods. Glory was here for some time before she managed to infiltrate the body of an American airman serving locally and thus was incarnated into the body of Ben, his son.”

“How in buggery did you learn that, Watcher?” Spike was genuinely astonished.

“The Council had files. I read rather a lot when I was training. I would be interested, I confess, to know how you or Angel knew about it.”

Spike’s eyes yellowed abruptly, as his eyebrow ridges hardened. “Trying it on a bit too much, Watcher,” he growled. “Once more – and I want an answer this time - you tellin’ me you don’t remember telling Angel to piss off?”

“What?!” came from three voices at once. Dawn and Buffy looked startled and confused, but their surprise was nothing compared to the look on Rupert Giles’s face. 

“That’s the second time you’ve said this, Spike. Believe me when I say that I have absolutely no idea what you are talking about. When did I speak to Angel? Not since he left Sunnydale, I think. Certainly not for a long time, though it’s true I have had reports of his activities more recently.”

Both were standing now, the tension between them almost visible. Spike’s voice was as close to a growl as it had ever been. “You told Angel Willow was in Nepal. You hung up on him. You abandoned Fred without even knowing her name.” He leant forward, gripping the coarse straw of the bales till it crumbled in his fists, his face full vampire by now. Rupert Giles almost mirrored his position for a moment, then sighed and removed his glasses once more.

“Spike, Willow has not been to Nepal. She talked about going to India a couple of months ago, but no more than that. What is this drivelling nonsense?”

There was the faintest of coughs from his side. His brother stood up, an expression close to discomfort on his face. “It’s possible I may be able to explain this, Rupert. If I may?”

The level of astonishment at the table rose another notch. Once he was assured every eye was upon him, Oscar Giles coughed, an artificial, self-conscious little sound which grated on Spike’s nerves. Rupert Giles raised an eyebrow and nodded.

“Last March, Rupert, as I’m sure you recall, you went up to Scotland to investigate a possible base for training of some of the European Slayers. Somewhere in the Trossachs, I think? You were not enthusiastic, I remember – something about shower facilities and insulation or some such nonsense.”

“Get on with it, Oscar. I assume there is a point you wish to make?”

“There was a call, while you were away. I dealt with it on your behalf. There did not seem to be a need to draw it to your attention.”

“What?” Spike and Rupert Giles spoke in tandem. 

“Someone rang, from the States. He wanted to speak to Mr Giles. He spoke to me. Why not? As soon as I gathered where he was phoning from, I knew exactly the right course of action. No good ever came from dealing with that company.”

“Step back, brother dear. You need to think very carefully about your answer here. Did you allow your caller to believe he was talking to me?”

“Does it really matter? We both know what Wolfram and Hart represent. Would you really have given support to a vampire telephoning from their Los Angeles base? Even you, Rupert, would surely not have gone so far.”

In the dusk of the barn Spike’s eyes glowed fiery yellow. His fangs, fully-descended, grazed his lower lip, making a thin trickle of blood run down his chin. Soul or not, he was very close to losing it, Buffy could see. 

“OK, guys. Enough talky times. Sun’s down, our fiery friend’s out there and we do not have time for grudges, stupid or reasonable. I don’t care which. We need to act. Rupert Giles. You know most about this place. What’s the sitch?”

As she spoke she placed a calming hand on Spike’s arm, gripping him more firmly as he tried to shake her off. “Spike.” Her tone dropped; this was for him alone, “The mission is what matters. You know that. Later there may be space to sort this out. Not now – I can’t afford in-fighting in the team.”

For a moment she thought it would not work, then he shook away the ridges and sharp edges. “Whatever you say, Slayer. Your call as always.” He looked across the makeshift table. “Rupes, looks as if I may owe you an apology, if what that ponce is saying means what I think it means. Him and me, though – we’re gonna need a serious conversation. Later”

Rupert Giles took the lead. “Thank you, Spike. I have a feeling my brother is going to have a less than comfortable time. If, that is, we survive tonight, which is far from guaranteed.” He looked around, at the uncomfortably silent witches, at Dawn, biting her lip, at Witleof, his eyes darting from one person to another, and at the still-standing, still-hostile members of the group. “Sit down, please. I’ll sum this up quickly. We need to get to the Deeper Well. We need to get there now. And when we get there, we will need to act together, as a team. Believe me, I am not exaggerating in the slightest when I say the balance of our universe depends on it.”


	25. Into the Dark

There was little light left in the sky by the time the group pushed through the battered barn door and into the farmyard. “We’re going to need some light”, Dawn announced. “Is there a flashlight in that rental car?”

“There’s probably a torch in there. Yes. Go look, will you, Bit?” When did he become a leader?

Rupert Giles nodded and moved to his own vehicle, rummaging in the door pockets. He swore under his breath after a moment and called his brother across to help with the search. After a moment he called again, with the same complete absence of a response. He jerked his head up, colliding with the door frame.

“Still bumping your head I see, Watcher,” Spike pointed out. It was quite unnecessary to do so, but fun.

“Thank you, Spike. I had noticed.” Rupert’s voice was sharp. “Where is my brother?”

Dawn and Buffy looked around, then at each other. Who had seen him last? They turned to the witches.

“I thought he was with us when we left the barn.” Althanea sounded concerned. 

“He was. Took off thataway as soon as Big Bro went to his motor, though.” Spike sounded bored, but Buffy recognised an edge to his voice.

“Whichaway? Should we worry?” Dawn noticed the edge too – what would make the other, non-Giles, Giles rush off? What was making her Giles go all Watchery on her?

Rupert Giles looked grim. “Some of you people seem to mistake rural prettiness for safety. California is far from the only demon-infested area, you know. Did I mention that this is a centre of mystical convergence? You ought to remember, Buffy. There was one of those in Sunnydale.”

“You mean this well thing is kinda Hellmouthy? Not cool.” Dawn felt she was doing quite a good impression of her sister’s way with words there. Twin glares from Buffy and Spike suggested otherwise. She mimed closing a zip across her lips.

Spike’s voice was deep and low. “Bit, this well makes the pit at Sunnydale look like a dry puddle. I’ve looked into it. It’s a hole in the world. Literally.”

Dawn opened her mouth to ask if he meant right through to Australia, looked at the intensity of his gaze and thought better of it. He noticed her reaction and spoke, “Went there with the Great Broody One. Not so long before it all went down in LA. Not a good memory, neither. Not quite as pleasant or as relaxing as your run-of-the-dale hellmouth, neither. Whatever’s up now, it’s got to have summat to do with that, stands to reason.”

“My concern is why my dear brother felt the need to rush off there ahead of us.” Rupert Giles spoke in a clipped voice, the strain very clear. “It is not at all in his usual character. He leads from the rear, I’m afraid. I have a very uncomfortable feeling our igneous friend may have influenced him.” Cliché or not, his spectacles were in his hand, cleaning in progress. 

Dawn gaped at him. God but her mouth was taking a lot of controlling just now. But this was the brother of Giles. The Giles who had been one of the fixed points in her life as long as she could remember. Since before she had existed, technically, though those weren’t thoughts she much enjoyed playing with. She couldn’t imagine not trusting Rupert Giles. Surely that must apply to his brother too?

Buffy could imagine not trusting Rupert Giles all too easily. It had taken a while after the end of her home town before she’d felt as comfortable with him as before. No, not quite that comfortable – perhaps never quite so comfortable ever again, to be honest with herself. With Spike so close to her he could probably feel her tingling, that edge of grief and resentment had gone, but the sense of betrayal had been very profound. Now it was looking as if her ex-Watcher might get to feel betrayed too, which would be … interesting. Probably in a Chinese way, knowing her luck.

Spike was bored. No, more like irritable. He did not like this place – too many memories and a sense of failure, something he never much liked to dwell on. If they were going to that pit, they should go, not faff about after the mini-watcher. Wanker had headed off in the direction of the Well. They were all heading that way too. What was the big deal?

“Know bloody well what the deal is,” he muttered in an undertone. Something was beginning to stink here. He sidled across to the Giles he knew. “Hey, Rupes old mate. Should we just head over there after your lad? Nowhere much else he’s likely to go now, is there?”

“Thank you, Spike, for your pithy analysis of the situation.” Rupert Giles sounded even more irritated than Spike – and worried, which was not quite the same. “However, I am inclined to agree. Run!” The last word, almost barked, startled the entire group for a moment, then they all stumbled forwards, picking up speed as they began to cover the ground, tripping over roots and stones, until Dawn flicked on the flashlight she had acquired when actually doing as she had been told for once. 

Their route lay uphill for a little way then, as they crested the rise, flattened out. The wavering torchlight showed individual trees and almost-manicured lawns in between them. A smooth slope, more like a lawn than parkland, ran down to a clump of trees, darker than dark in the light from the stars, the moon and Dawn’s flashlight. Spike was in the lead by now and swept his arm out to act as a bar to the others. No onward rush was going to be allowed here.

“OK, Slayer. You and me first, right? Look to the sides as we go downhill – likely to be an assault from there if last time’s anything to go by. Witlewotsit next, then witches, watchers, and the Bit.”

Buffy stared at him for a second. When had Spike turned into the tactical brain of the situation? All she could do was nod her assent and move into position. Andrew was safely to the rear, where with any luck he could cause fewer problems than usual, and Dawn was as safe as could be managed. As if by instinct she reached out a hand to grab Spike’s, and found him doing the same. After all this time they could still work as a machine. They glanced at each other, grinned and began to run downhill.

As they picked up speed, bounding from tussock to clump, avoiding holes, roots and moss with an agility not matched by the rest of their team, they inevitably drew ahead, something Spike had planned. For a few moments he gave himself up to the sheer exhilaration of running with his best girl by his side, then grunted to draw her attention. “Gonna be an attack in about thirty seconds, I reckon. You ready for that?”

She nodded, scanning ahead for the telltale signs of demon opponents. “How’d you do it last time?” she half-grunted.

“Cheese wire,” Spike replied, his focus never leaving the slope ahead of them. “Not so much your thing, I’m thinking. Crossover trick instead?”

She nodded her assent and squeezed his hand briefly, before releasing it as a metal helmet came into view below them. She counted to ten, then launched herself crosswise, in a trajectory that would have bowled her partner over had he not changed direction as swiftly as her, aiming at the figure starting to advance from Buffy’s right just as she took out the assailant on his left with a roundhouse kick and a chop to the throat. God, but this felt so _right_.

As if choreographed, they bent in synchrony, wresting jagged-looking blades and crude shields from their late opponents, then straightened to face the next onslaught. Spike gave the next attacker a hobnail in the throat, spinning away and maintaining momentum in order to land on the chest of the next in line. “Nice one,” Buffy managed to call in between finishing off two particularly ugly characters.

Buffy and Spike stood back-to-back, surveying what was left of the concerted attack. Only three left now, all with much more wary expressions, but no sign of reduced determination. Spike grinned. Only three-to-two? Poor buggers probably hadn’t a clue how far they were outnumbered.

This time they worked even more like a machine, flipping and swinging and vaulting in harmony, not pausing to count or breathe till their opponents lay around them. From up the hill there was a burst of applause. “Still got it, luv,” Spike told her. 

“Not so bad yourself, considering your age,” she retorted.

The rest of the group caught up. The entrance to the Deeper Well was waiting for them.


	26. Beneath Us.

The moon cast shadows which intersected with the bark of the ancient tree to give it something of an _Edward Scissorhands_ look. Not that anyone really felt the need to point this out. Dawn shivered and stepped slightly closer to her companion. Even Andrew had his uses.

Spike and Buffy stood, alert, poised to resume fighting, but surrounded by the extremely inert demon guards they had just dealt with. In the half-light even the blood looked bleached, and the hacked-about bodies no more than lumps of darkness. A light breeze ruffled Buffy’s hair, blowing wisps across her face, and made scraps of clothing on the demon corpses flutter like defeated flags.

After a few moments they relaxed their stance. It was quiet now. The rest of the group shuffled forward. Dawn wrinkled her nose as she tried to step around the spatters of blood. Andrew grabbed for her hand. She did not reject him.

“Right, you lot. This is where it gets serious. Listen to this. You follow these rules, and you do not choose which ones to follow. I’ve been here before. That’s how come I go first. Used to be a Guardian here, but I know for a fact that one’s dead. Don’t know if he’s been replaced, let alone who or what by. So we take it slowly and steadily. You stay alert, but you attack nothing unless the Slayer here gives the word, or yours truly. Dawn, you stay at the back. No arguing, no heroics, Bit. We don’t want any risks protecting you. History guy, you’re with me. Rupes, listen for your bratty bro. The rest of you? Shut the gobs, keep the eyes and ears wide open and stick in pairs. Understood?”

Buffy stared down Giles and Andrew till they nodded as the others had done. “What he said. Especially the bit about heroics.”

The troupe moved carefully down the hill, between the skeletal trees. Spike muttered to Buffy, “It was about here we met the bloke in charge. Take it slowly, eh?”

There was a whole lot of silence. The crack in the base of the tree gaped wider as they approached. After a few minutes Buffy realised that it really was gaping wider and growing taller; as they reached it there was easily room for them to enter, in their prearranged crocodile formation. The leaf litter and twigs underfoot gave way to sand and pebbles, the crunching sounds to shuffles and sussuration. The arch of the tunnel loomed over them, with sturdy tree roots rippling along the walls.

Still no movement, no sign of life or unlife, no voices or sounds other than those they made themselves. Even their breathing sounded loud and the sandy walls pressed in on them. They felt gritty to the touch, with rough lumps of tree root sticking out to catch at sleeves and trip feet. Andrew was still clinging to Dawn’s hand and squeezed it, hard. 

Suddenly the walls stopped, as did Spike. Witleof’s eyes were growing round and his jaw dropped. Ahead, on an oddly rustic walkway across some sort of drop, stood a tall figure, a man with roughly-hacked hair, wearing a tunic very like his own. His form wavered, from as solid as the rock behind him to almost transparent enough to make that rock visible. 

“Seo beadwe gléde bist.” The lips did not move, but the voice echoed deeply around the chamber. The translation spell clicked into action a second or two after the sound finished resonating. It was Spike’s turn to look astonished. 

“You are the flame of battle?” he murmured. “Would that flame be a brand, now?” On his first visit to this forsaken pit there had been a man with a remarkably similar name. He disliked thinking of him and his fate.

Witleof swallowed and straightened. He replied in the same archaic language, but the spell was working again. “I am no hero. They called me Manswica**. My mother called me Witleof, but her spirit was taken by the soul-sucker many ages ago. Why give you me this name?”

Spike grimaced. It never went well when people started talking like sodding Yoda. Translation spells were far too bloody archaic for his tastes. And if they called him a base deceiver, why in hell didn’t the spell translate that too? 

Mr Echo-Voice spoke again, but this time the translation worked at once. “You are the deceiver who must atone, the fighter who must resume the battle, the flame who must light the darkness. Welcome to your final home.”

From the darkness beyond him a second voice threaded the air. “He’s not leaving, that is certain.” A shot reverberated around the chamber and all but the two original speakers flung themselves to the dirt.

Rupert Giles lifted his head. “Oscar. What in hell are you doing?”

The tall figure spoke again, “You have sealed your own fate, little man. Two must enter and not leave. Knew you not that? Why thought you that I permitted your entry and your feeble attempts at concealment?”

“Know a Godking in LA talks like that. Think they might be related,” Spike muttered, more to himself than anyone else. 

“You know, I do think you might be right there,” Angel replied. “It won’t do you any good to know that, William me lad. No, no need to turn around. You won’t be seeing me.” 

Spike controlled his startled reaction. “You’re not him. No more than when you tried the fireworks in the barn.”

“Ah, but I am him. Don’t be talking so loud. Ye’re the only one who can hear me, after all.”

“Invisible to everyone but me? Not the Peaches I know and love.” Deliberately, Spike turned, glaring. There was a space behind him, and beyond that Rupert Giles was also glaring. At his pillock of a brother or at him? Spike shrugged. “Rupes? Our nasty old friend is back. Not so fiery, but you might want to keep an eye peeled.”

Rupert Giles grimaced. “That’s who you were talking to. Great. The cherry on the proverbial pie.” He shook his head and focused on his brother. “Oscar? You don’t have to be silly here. Guns never work well in this sort of situation, you know that.”

Oscar’s voice broke into a high-pitched giggle. “Big brother, big brother. You can’t always be the boss of me, you know. Actually, from now on, you can’t ever be the boss of me. Step aside and give me a clear shot, or you won’t enjoy the consequences.”

“Are you really threatening to shoot me? You never did do melodrama very well.”

“That’s how you explain it to yourself is it?” Oscar was developing a whine now. “We’ll go with that if you insist. I’m not in the mood for an Evil Overlord speech. I just need to dispose of the surplus body and we’re done here.”

“Oh I like him. Nice reference there. You can tell he’s one of mine.” Angelus sounded quite happy, always a sign that he was at his nastiest and someone was about to suffer. Spike repressed a shudder.

The brothers glowered at each other, a world of childhood rivalry and resentment fuelling the very real and present crisis. And then there was a second shot.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Manswica – Anglo-Saxon for Deceit, fraud, treachery


	27. Chapter Twenty-Seven: Can We Rest Now?

As the last echoes of the shot faded the odd figure on the bridge staggered and folded, settling half-over the frail handrail. At the same time most of the party flashed into action.

Buffy hurled herself at Oscar. She kicked his ankles hard, so they slid from beneath him, then forced his shoulders round as well as back., Within moments he was face-down in the dirt, his hands firmly gripped. 

Witleof and Rupert Giles launched themselves towards the gantry and the wounded figure, still pulsating between solidity and transparency but now looking grey and wan. There was a problem which took some while to solve; he really did oscillate between two states, and in only one of them was it possible to grip any part of him. His would-be rescuers found their hands meeting more than once before they worked out the rhythm and were able to move him, with extreme gentleness, away from the bridge. The closer he was to the solid ground, however, the longer his insubstantial phases became. 

Giles sighed. “I think this is as far as we dare move him.” He drew a hand across the victim’s forehead, which looked shiny and moist. His fingertips, however, remained dry. “He’s barely in our world as it is.” He raised his voice, “Miss Hartnett? I think your assistance would be of considerable utility here.”

The two experienced witches pushed their way through the rest of the group. Team work, it seemed, was essential to them. Their fingertips lightly touching on one side, they knelt and used the remaining hands to hover, palm downwards, over the supine victim. Both hummed quietly, as they moved the free hands across the body, as if giving a gentle massage at eight inches’ distance. 

Sweat began to build on the brow of the older witch. “We could do with a third here. Althanea is a maiden. I’m … older. There’s a missing element.”

At the back of the group, closest to the exit, a scuffle broke out, hissed imprecations and a high-pitched yelp as Dawn’s boot cut a sliver from Andrew’s shin. “You do qualify. You know you do. Stop trying to give me that bullshit.”

Spike turned round to stare. His Nibblet’s vocabulary had come on a way since she’d been The Key. He lifted the scarred eyebrow as he watched the littlest Summers grab the nitwit by his collar and thrust him forward. She coughed to draw attention to herself. “Ladies? I have a feeling this person,” she was choosing her words with care, “could fit your needs. He has some magical experience, especially in demon-raising, and I am _absolutely certain_ he qualifies in other ways.

Andrew glowered at her. She glared back. Her glare was much more intense than his glower. You could see him settle to the loss of his last shreds of dignity, Spike noted with interest. Then the boy straightened, as far as he could, and moved forward to the head of the inanimate figure. He spoke through gritted teeth, too quiet even for vampire hearing, but whatever he said, it was clearly enough. He hovered both palms above the face and joined in the hum, exactly on-pitch.

The pulsating figure grew slowly more solid, each phase lasting a little longer. Giles was fascinated, but stood back. Spike was fascinated too, but by the faces of those around him, especially of the little git his Slayer was still sitting on. Oscar grunted and looked up, but was suspiciously still as he watched the magic users working to undo his work. There was a sickening sense of smugness there too.

Spike had had enough. He strode forward and nudged Buffy. “Let me take over pet? Promise I won’t bite him. Not even a nibble, though it’s no more than the wanker deserves. Just think he might have a few more things to tell us.” As she moved aside for him, Spike nodded his thanks to his girl. That was a habit of thought he needed to get out of, pronto. Bloody dangerous thinking, that, for an infatuated creature of the night.

Still, first things, as they say. Without too much care for gentleness he wrenched the younger Giles upright, pushing the bound hands up to the shoulderblade so the berk had to stand almost on tiptoe. “Anything you’re not telling us, mate? Now could be a really good time to mention it, if so.” Oscar’s eyes widened a little and he grimaced, but his mouth stayed shut.

The bugger of it all was that in this company Spike could not really give him the seeing to he so demonstrably deserved. He did what he could, hoisting his hands higher, and with them his captive. Interesting, that. Must hurt quite a bit, but the little turd still wasn’t speaking. Angel muttered in his ears again. “My boy, my boy, you know this won’t work.” The speaker morphed form as he spoke. “Spike, my darling boy. He’s no fun to play with. You’re no fun to play with any more. A girl needs her fun, you know. Put the nasty boy down and come with me. We can have fun, just the two of us.”

“Dru, love? Just bugger off will you?” If anything was needed to convince Spike that he was working along the right tracks, the interventions of his sire and grandsire, or the hijacking of their images for intervention’s sake, this was certainly it. Sod it. Spike swung round, dragging Oscar with him, and thrust his face against the ragged stone and dirt of the cave wall. The head bounced back and Spike banged it forward again. Oscar squeaked.

The attention of most of the group was still on the magic circle, straining every sinew of enchantment to stabilise their patient. Buffy was not with them, though. She followed Spike and his captive to the wall. “Want any help, Spike? I don’t approve of torture in the normal way of things, but just sometimes I’m willing to make an exception. I have some sharp pointy things in my bag if you give me a minute.”

Spike hid a grin. His girl or not, she knew all about team work. He pushed the back of Oscar’s head a couple more times, for the heck of it rather than expecting results. The jerk was closer to cracking than he knew, though, and muttered grunts of pain were interrupted by pleas of _stop_. Spike obliged, twisting him round not very gently. The face was a mix of blood and mud, and the nose and eyes were nicely swollen.

Buffy moved in. Oscar could not see beyond the pair, and nobody could see him. Defeat spoke loud in his expression, but it was far from total. “Why not?” he muttered. At least, it was a close approximation – he sounded for all the world as if he had a good dose of catarrh. “It’s too late now anyway. The necessary creatures are gathered, and my part is done.” 

Buffy had forgotten that Spike could growl quite that way, more animal than human. The planes of his face shifted, the blue merged into hot yellow, and the brow-ridges loomed. Oscar looked more panicked than before, but still held a faint smirk. “Too late, William. Too late. You will have a part to perform, but it is not this part.”

Buffy and Spike shared an eyeroll. Pop culture references at such times were not for every moron who came along. Puns and allusions had to be honed, took wit and inspiration. Not this crap.

“OK, Aragorn,” Buffy leaned in, “tell me right now what part you mean or I will remove all of your parts. Slowly. Probably messily too. What’s the what and how do we stop it?”

Echoes of a younger Slayer and another, younger, better Giles were there for a moment. Spike relaxed into a second’s nostalgia. Then he started to grasp what Oscar was saying.

**Author's Note:**

> Started five years ago as an entry for Seasonal Spuffy on Live Journal and continued in fits and starts ever since - now finally approaching the end.


End file.
